-Provider of Education Loans Taps Cognos Partner Merador for Business Expertise and Technology Implementation- BURLINGTON, Mass., Aug. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions, today announced that ELM Resources, a leading student loan industry data exchange network, has chosen Cognos 8 Business Intelligence (BI) as its standard BI platform and data warehouse. "Our goal was to find a flexible, easy-to-use solution. We found exactly what we were looking for in Cognos," said Pierre Vedel, senior vice president/CIO of ELM Resources. "We can go from simply pushing reports to users, to giving them choice in selecting meaningful metrics specific to their work. The end result is real-time interaction where users get the specific information they need." ELM, which manages more than one-third of all student FFELP loans in the US, wants to turn data into knowledge assets for its users. Financial aid offices across the US use ELM to find the best possible loan package for students. ELM has chosen Cognos 8 BI reports to show the range of loan options available to students and to help financial aid offices understand where a loan is in its lifecycle, from application through approval to disbursement. Merador, a Cognos Platinum Reseller Partner, is working with ELM Resources on its business intelligence strategy and the Cognos 8 BI implementation. "Helping schools find the proper student loan package is a complex task that involves a lot of different data and information," said Gary Frings, managing partner, Merador. "We're helping ELM Resources improve its business with Cognos 8 BI so it can maximize information in an environment that is flexible and scalable." Ensuring interoperability with any type of IT environment, data source, and ERP platform helps ELM meet the diverse needs of its customers and its own infrastructure comprised of Oracle databases, its own proprietary business applications, Corticon's business rules management tools, and IBM Websphere Portal solutions, among others. ELM is seeing immediate benefits. With Cognos 8 BI's Web-based architecture and easy-to-use interface, customers and employees can create and access reports themselves, giving them on demand access to information critical to their business and the productivity of their users. This enhancement delivers time and cost savings in user support, replacing time that ELM customer support staff spent manually creating as many as 1,600 reports each year. Cognos 8 BI is a groundbreaking product that provides decision makers at all levels of the enterprise with a consistent, accurate view of information to better manage performance. As a single product that easily integrates into existing infrastructures with multiple systems and data sources, Cognos 8 BI is a robust technology foundation for BI standardization and corporate performance management. "Cognos 8 BI helps companies perform better because it delivers a simplified BI environment enabling better decision-making," said Gaurav Verma, financial services industry director, Cognos. "ELM Resources recognizes the value in broad user adoption across an organization. By working with Merador throughout the implementation process, ELM Resources is ensuring that it is getting leading expertise paired with the industry's leading enterprise BI solution." Cognos is a recognized leader in delivering performance management solutions for the financial services industry. Over 1,000 financial services institutions worldwide use Cognos, including nine of the top 10 banks in Europe and the top 10 in the United States. Customers include SWIFT, the financial industry-owned co-operative servicing over 7,800 financial institutions in more than 200 countries. For more information about Cognos solutions for the banking and financial services industry, please visit http://www.cognos.com/solutions/industry/banking-financial- services/index.html. About ELM Resources: ELM Resources makes your student loan management tasks simple, easy, and flexible. The ELM system provides you with automated Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) and alternative loan data exchange, updates, funding, and information through the Internet. ELM's Members and Affiliates cooperate to provide you with a common data exchange system so they can compete on price and other services. ELM Resources is a not-for-profit company supported by the lenders, guarantors, and servicers who are its members. About Merador: Merador is a unique business solutions and software consulting firm. We are a company founded and managed by former business executives who have dealt with the same strategic and tactical challenges you face every day. We understand that to be successful, our clients need access to timely and accurate information -- and we know how to employ technology to give them the visibility needed to both see and use information to maximum advantage. 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/. Cognos and the Cognos logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cognos Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Media Contacts: Amy Shanler Cognos, Inc., 781-313-2464 Jolene Bonina Lois Paul & Partners, LLC, 781-782-5849 Investor Relations: John Lawlor Cognos, Inc., 613-738-3503 DATASOURCE: Cognos CONTACT: Amy Shanler, Media Contact, +1-781-313-2464, , or John Lawlor, Investor Relations, +1-613-738-3503, , both of Cognos, Inc.; or Jolene Bonina of Lois Paul & Partners, LLC, for Cognos, Inc., +1-781-782-5849, Web site: http://www.cognos.com/ Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/107867.html

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