PHILADELPHIA, PA, April 26, 2000—Cognos^® (Nasdaq:COGN; TSE:CSN), the leading strategic vendor of enterprise business intelligence (BI) solutions for e-business, today announced from the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) conference, that they are the first BI vendor to offer packaged e-Applications for Oracle’s e-Business Suite. Cognos e-Applications, a series of analytic applications that address key functional areas of an organization, provide Oracle e-Business Suite users a rapid return on corporate investment, reduce implementation costs and effort, and drive shorter time to results for better business performance measurement.

Organizations are under pressure to create an e-business infrastructure that allows them to efficiently manage their business at Internet speed. With e-Applications, customers are able to leverage the investment they have in their Oracle systems, enhance relationships with customers, suppliers and partners, and provide their users with business critical information for decision-making via the Web for competitive advantage.

"Cognos is focused on bringing immediate business value and access to the vast amounts of corporate data stored within Oracle solution-based environments, and help our mutual customers increase sales productivity, competitiveness and customer satisfaction," said Alan Rottenberg, Cognos senior vice president of e-business intelligence applications. "With Cognos e-Applications, we are now extending and complementing Oracle’s solutions and transforming key data assets into actionable business information. The most successful organizations will be those that use Cognos e-Applications to make consistent, coordinated decisions, and share it with partners, suppliers and customers to grow the business and strengthen the value chain."

Cognos e-Applications include defined extractions and data models, proven business content and best practices displayed through captured business metrics, and a full suite of key performance indicators (KPIs), reports and analyses. Built upon Cognos’ unique operational framework and robust production environment, Cognos e-Applications help Oracle customers get a strategic perspective on their data, enabling them to derive immediate business value from their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

Oracle customers are now uniquely positioned to quickly unlock the value of their enterprise data for Sales and Inventory Analysis using Cognos e-Applications. Cognos e-Applications provide

• Business-Ready content, with pre-defined analysis and business reports and KPIs that users need to make immediate business decisions in key functional areas of their business;

• Production-Ready architecture, enabling customizable solutions on a robust IT foundation that increase speed of implementation and simplify maintenance, thereby reducing impact on IT resources;

• E-Ready solutions to leverage key data assets for widespread Web deployment both within the company and to external points.

Cognos’ channel partners are well positioned to make Cognos e-Applications part of their overall business strategy, helping their customers achieve faster time to results and be more successful.

"We see tremendous opportunity in implementing Cognos e-Applications with Oracle’s e-Business Suite, so that our customers can use the data to explore business drivers more effectively," said Mark Quigg, president and CEO of NewSys Solutions Inc., an established IT-services company and Team Cognos partner that delivers solutions for business intelligence, systems integration and application management. "Cognos is well-positioned to supply a solution to Oracle customers who want to provide self-service analytical reporting built on integrated data mart applications. Cognos e-Applications will allow our customers to obtain information from Oracle systems faster, at a lower cost, and with a more immediate impact on their business."

Availability
The Cognos Sales Analysis for Oracle will be available within 60 days. Inventory Analysis will be available within 90 days. Cognos plans additional e-Applications customized for the Oracle community in 2000. Sales Analysis helps companies retain their customer base, close sales faster and generate more revenue, while Inventory Analysis provides customers with key information on their stock reservations, helps them analyze their material usage rates and forecast inventory levels.

This press release contains forward-looking statements about new product developments, features and availability. These forward-looking statements are made under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected. There can be no guarantee that future results will turn out as expected. Those risks and uncertainties are detailed in the Company’s SEC filings from time to time, including the most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K.