North Central Texas Council of Governments Completes Multi-Suite Lawson Implementation; Member Cities' Shared Services Strategy Saves Taxpayer Dollars While Promoting Business Best Practices, Enhanced Customer Service.

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The North Central Texas Council of Governments completed its implementation of Lawson Software's (Nasdaq:LWSN) Financials, Human Resources and Procurement suites on March 22, 2006. The government association now hosts the applications on behalf of three member cities - Arlington, Carrollton and Grand Prairie - in a shared services center designed to reduce the cities' operational costs and support greater functionality.

"Cross-agency collaboration, strong executive leadership, best practices adoption and process standardization were key factors in how these cities gained the business software they needed at a price they could afford," said Monte Mercer, director of administration, North Central Texas Council of Governments. "By hosting these applications for our members, we're helping them transform the way they conduct business so they can expand services despite scarce resources."

Replacing the cities' legacy business systems, the Lawson applications now enable the cities to increase operational efficiencies in several areas. For example, by standardizing core administrative processes and moving to a hosted application model, the cities of Arlington and Carrollton now spend less on information technology support compared to running their legacy systems. And, the city of Grand Prairie has seen measurable time savings in human resources administration. The Lawson applications also have enabled some city employees to spend less time on administration so they can focus on serving constituents.

"Collaborating with our peers on system selection and implementation significantly reduced our costs and raised the overall quality of the implementation," said Tim Barbee, chief information officer, city of Arlington. "We also expect to see ongoing savings by sharing system maintenance and support costs. These benefits are possible because all three cities made a firm commitment to make this complex project work."

NCTCOG began the implementation by creating a shared services board to oversee the project. Functional teams for information technology, human resources, purchasing and finance supported this board throughout project design, rollout and training. Each functional team included employees from all three cities, Lawson Professional Services and Lawson consulting partner Answerthink, Inc. The technical team also included NCTCOG representatives.

The shared services board developed and implemented a formal change management plan to communicate project milestones and new processes to city employees. And, best practice implementation services provided by Answerthink embedded detailed best practice designs into the application configuration. To support the board's objective of continuous best practice adoption, NCTCOG also took advantage of the World-Class Passport(TM) program delivered by The Hackett Group, an Answerthink company, which provides best practice research, on-demand advisor access and peer networking as a shared resource for project improvement teams.

"The combination of integrated Hackett-Certified(TM) practice designs, on-demand access to Hackett business advisors and our best practice research has made it easy for NCTCOG's member cities to deliver high process standardization and reduced complexity," said Bill Carey, leader of Answerthink's Lawson Practice. "The Lawson applications are already enabling these cities to drive lower costs and better serve their constituents, by helping them to strategically align activities in key functional areas with their individual needs and goals."

According to Barbee, the cities will meet regularly post-implementation to ensure they take advantage of the system's full functionality and maximize their return on investment.

"The consortium buying trend is gaining momentum as public sector organizations look for creative ways to enhance service within limited budgets," said Alex Kaplan, practice director, Government and Education, Lawson Software. "Our products and services offer the sophisticated functionality local governments need to increase their operational efficiency at the lowest total cost of ownership."

Lawson serves more than 100 government and education clients, including three of the top six digital state governments and four of the 25 largest school districts in the United States. School districts, cities, counties, state governments, publicly owned utilities, municipal districts and membership organizations rely on Lawson's solutions to help meet the needs of a variety of stakeholders - students, constituents, members, employees, vendors and the community - while helping to maximize limited budgets.

About Lawson Software

Lawson Software provides business application software and consulting services to services organizations in the healthcare, retail, government and education, banking and insurance and other markets. Lawson's software suites include enterprise performance management, distribution, financials, human capital management, procurement, retail operations and service process optimization. With headquarters in St. Paul, Minn., Lawson has offices and affiliates serving North and South America, Europe, and Africa. Visit www.lawson.com for more information. Lawson Software and Lawson are registered trademarks of Lawson Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that contain risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements contain statements of intent, belief or current expectations of Lawson Software, Inc., and its management. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the potential results discussed in the forward-looking statements. The company is not obligated to update forward-looking statements based on circumstances or events that occur in the future. Risks and uncertainties that may cause such differences include but are not limited to: uncertainties in the company's ability to realize synergies and revenue opportunities anticipated from the Intentia International acquisition; uncertainties in the software industry; global military conflicts; terrorist attacks in the United States, and any future events in response to these developments; changes in conditions in the company's targeted service industries; increased competition and other risk factors listed in the company's most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and as included in other documents the company files from time to time with the Commission.