Backed by Cognos partners, Cognos 8 v3 helps customers accelerate their progress towards pervasive performance management and improved decision-making. It consists of:

• New, richer BI and financial performance management user capabilities to deliver more targeted information to more user roles. These are led by Cognos’ flagship business intelligence solution, Cognos 8 BI v3, unveiled today.
• Core advances in the Cognos 8 enterprise-class platform to simplify management and deployment.
• These enhanced user capabilities and the advances in the Cognos 8 platform are supported by new best-practice solutions and updated consulting, training and support offerings.

Joining Cognos 8 BI v3 are a full range of companion performance management capabilities for enterprise planning, forecasting and budgeting, Microsoft Excel-based exploration and analysis, and consumer modes that let users interact with BI content using familiar applications or devices, such as a BlackBerry®, enterprise search engine, Microsoft® Office application or Web browser. These performance management capabilities have all been optimized to leverage the Cognos 8 v3 platform and help technology, finance, line-of-business and executives drive informed, consistent decision-making across organizations.

To further accelerate customer success, Cognos has also introduced new best-practice solutions and updated consulting, training and support offerings. The updated Cognos Controller financial consolidation solution includes process enhancements to intercompany adjustments, additional GL audit, reporting and security capabilities and support for simplified Chinese. The Retail Financial Workbench and Public Sector Position Planning performance solutions introduced this week expand Cognos’ portfolio of Performance Blueprints and Powered by Cognos Solutions to over 135 targeted offerings.

A new role-based training curriculum focuses the content and learning experience on what students need to learn to effectively perform their specific roles. New Guardian Services work packages are now available to address the new features and functionality in Cognos 8 v3. Migration and upgrade utilities and services, roadmaps for the Cognos Solutions Implementation Methodology, offshore services from the Global Delivery Center, a new online customer resource center and an expanded range of proven practices to help with specific configurations have also been introduced to help customers successfully accelerate their performance management deployments with Cognos 8 v3.

“Our use of Cognos performance management solutions has started a culture shift within Bloorview. We are moving from data dispute to shared understanding and from gut reaction to fact-based decision-making,” said Hakim Lakhani, Director, Decision Support and Planning, Bloorview Kids Rehab. “The underlying platform connects all of the performance management user capabilities together into a comprehensive system where managers can access and build reports, analyze data cubes and view key company metrics with the confidence that information is consistent and trusted.”

“Cognos continues to develop and deliver innovative performance management offerings designed to meet the real-world needs of the enterprise or mid-market organization,” said Rob Ashe, CEO, Cognos. “This continued innovative evolution of our performance management system provides our customers with an unparalleled portfolio for turning data into actionable performance information to improve financial and operational visibility and overall business performance.”

*AMR Research, “Pervasive Performance Management: What it is and how to prepare,” by David Kasabian and John Hagerty, July 2007.

About Cognos:

Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions, provides world-class enterprise planning and BI software and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance.

Cognos brings together technology, analytical applications, best practices, and a broad network of partners to give customers a complete performance system. The Cognos performance system is an open and adaptive solution that leverages an organization’s ERP, packaged applications, and database investments. It gives customers the ability to answer the questions -- How are we doing? Why are we on or off track? What should we do about it? – and enables them to understand and monitor current performance while planning future business strategies.

Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in more than 135 countries, and its top 100 enterprise customers consistently outperform market indexes. Cognos performance management solutions and services are also available from more than 3,000 worldwide partners and resellers. For more information, visit the Cognos Web site at http://www.cognos.com.