BURLINGTON, Mass., November 1, 2000—Cognos^® (Nasdaq:COGN; TSE:CSN), the world's largest and most successful business intelligence company, today announced the acquisition of Chicago-based Johnson & Michaels, Inc. (JAMI), a leading provider of business intelligence consulting services. The acquisition will support Cognos' goal of accelerating the deployment of business intelligence applications and increasing license sales within global enterprises, reinforcing the Company's status as the industry's only single-source enterprise supplier. Terms of the acquisition of JAMI, which is privately held, were not disclosed. The Company does not expect this acquisition to have a material effect on the financial results of the Company for the current fiscal year.

Through the services of 19 professional consultants, JAMI offers a broad range of education and consulting services, and has extensive experience in working with business intelligence technology in data warehouse environments. JAMI's consulting expertise and engagement model will serve as a core element in Cognos' "Major Account" practice area, offering professional services, education and customer support to large, global organizations. Further, Cognos will integrate JAMI resources into Cognos' existing professional services to deliver the industry's broadest skill set for enterprise deployments, increase Cognos' services capacity, and enhance acquisition of new services accounts.

Cognos is the business intelligence industry's only supplier with a complete, end-to-end reporting and analysis solution, from back-end data extraction and data mart creation to visualization. The breadth and depth of the zero-footprint Cognos solution makes it ideal for large-scale Web deployments to thousands of internal and external users, according to a report issued by the Hurwitz Group, dated July 2000.

"The acquisition of Johnson & Michaels enhances our position as a strategic provider of enterprise solutions to global 2000 companies and will accelerate the expansion of Cognos software across these organizations," said Rob Ashe, Cognos Senior Vice President of Worldwide Services. "The strength of our professional services and support group differentiates Cognos from any other business intelligence vendor. Cognos is the only company in the market segment with a complete solution, from products to services, consulting, and customer support and education."