BURLINGTON, MA, July 18, 2001—Cognos^® (Nasdaq: COGN; TSE:CSN), the world's leading provider of business intelligence solutions, today unveiled an unprecedented new service organization dedicated to the unique requirements of large enterprise customers in North America. In recognition of the strategic importance of large business intelligence deployments in global organizations, the Enterprise Account Practice (EAP) will provide a high-touch, consultative approach to the enterprise business intelligence implementation needs of Fortune 1,000 companies.

For the global leaders supported by the new practice, among them leading Lincolnshire, Illinois-based Hewitt Associates, the EAP provides ongoing professional management and consulting designed to drive increasingly broad-based business intelligence implementations across the entire enterprise. The new EAP is formed in large part by the November 2000 acquisition of Chicago-based Johnson & Michaels, Inc. (JAMI), a leading provider of business intelligence consulting services.

Hewitt Associates is a global management consulting and outsourcing firm specializing in human resource solutions. With more than 11,000 associates working in 37 countries worldwide, Hewitt is well equipped to meet the challenges facing a global workforce. The company's client roster includes more than two-thirds of the Fortune 500 and more than one-third of the Global 500. As the largest multi-service benefits delivery provider in the U.S., Hewitt answers more than 30 million HR-related calls a year from more than 10 million employees.

"The Cognos EAP is much more than a supplier of business intelligence, the professional service staff works as members of our internal teams, supplying constant innovation and delivering tangible business benefit. Hewitt Associates demands fast-paced, informed and accurate decision-making. The Cognos solution in conjunction with the talent in the EAP brings industry-leading professional services and allow us to build upon our existing deployments, accelerating corporate adoption and driving the benefit to increasingly large numbers of users," said Mike Jennings, Hewitt Associates.

"For our enterprise customers, business intelligence is unequivocally 'mission critical.' Their Cognos deployment is the fundamental means to drive business performance and growth," said David Achtemichuk, VP worldwide customer services, Cognos. "Today's announcement of the EAP underlines the commitment Cognos has to ensuring our customer and enterprise partner successes by working together in true business partnerships. The launch further reinforces Cognos' status as the industry's only single-source enterprise supplier of business intelligence."