BURLINGTON, MA, June 24, 2002—Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSE: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence (BI), today announced widespread customer validation for Cognos Finance 6.0, the industry's most comprehensive consolidation, planning, budgeting, and forecasting solution. Delivering the increased capability to integrate other systems with reporting, extended integration with Excel and enhanced global budgeting capabilities, Cognos Finance 6.0 gives organizations in-depth insight into financial performance and is a key component in effectively managing corporate performance

Some of the companies working with Cognos Finance 6.0 include Carlson Leisure Group, Career Education, Documentum, Murray Inc., and Overland Data.

Carlson Leisure Group:
Carlson Leisure Group manages leisure and franchise travel operations throughout the United States under a variety of diversified companies and brands. The company has deployed Cognos Finance to streamline financial reporting and budgeting processes, allowing executive managers unprecedented insight into the financial performance of the company.

"Cognos Finance has already allowed us to slash significant time from our financial processes. It used to take eight hours to solve one month of financial data. Right now, we're taking five minutes to solve a full year of financial data," said David Voight, controller and senior director of finance, Carlson Leisure Group. "The new functionality in Cognos Finance 6.0 is going to give our teams the ability to take that data and run ad hoc scenarios, create multiple versions of the same plan, and really work collaboratively to build a strategic roadmap for our business."

Career Education:
Career Education Corporation is one of the world's largest providers of private, for-profit postsecondary education.

"We are very impressed with the new functionality of Cognos Finance 6.0. The drill-through and disconnected Excel budgeting capabilities result in a financial solution that is tightly integrated with all other systems and gives users the flexibility to perform budgeting, forecasting or reporting, anywhere, anytime," said Angie Risen-White, financial systems development supervisor, Career Education. "Cognos Finance delivers a powerful and comprehensive financial solution that puts the most accurate and up-to-date financial data into the hands of decision makers."

Documentum:
Documentum is the industry's leading enterprise content management provider, automating the production, exchange, and personalization of all types of content, making it easier for the Global 2000 to gain competitive advantage by connecting employees, business partners and customers, worldwide.

"The new functionality in Cognos Finance will help us create high-level business modeling and 'what-if analyses' quickly and easily. This kind of analysis requires very complicated calculations in conjunction with linkage to and from Cognos Finance," said Cherie Dentiste, Director of Financial Planning and Analysis, Documentum. "Cognos Finance 6.0 offers us an easy way to do those calculations while at the same time offering our business owners an intuitive tool for building operating plans."

Murray Inc.:
Murray, Inc. has been a fixture of the U.S. consumer goods sector for over a century, as a maker of supply fenders, hoods, gas tanks, and running boards as well as the collectible Steelcraft Wheel Goods toy line. Today, Murray has been able to rapidly upgrade to Cognos Finance 6.0 and the user community is already reaping the benefits of this enhanced solution in streamlining complex budgeting and forecasting processes, including further reducing monthly close times.

"The advanced drill-through capabilities of Cognos Finance 6.0 allow users to drill to transaction detail to provide additional detail or drill through to other non-Cognos applications, ensuring our financial systems are tightly integrated with all other systems," said Rose Melillo, financial systems manager, Murray Inc. "With Cognos Finance we can create accurate, timely financial reports and deliver financial performance information into the hands of our decision-makers, enabling them to better manage and forecast corporate performance."

"With Cognos Finance we have seen a dramatic reduction in the time spent performing the monthly close. Our Close was reduced from a five-day close to a three-day close. The consolidated reporting requirements previously took two weeks; with Cognos Finance, we are completing the reporting in just one day" said Courtney Bixenman, financial analyst, Murray Inc. "More time is now spent on analysis of the data and using this information to drive cost savings across the company."

Overland Data:
Overland Data, Inc. is a global supplier of innovative storage solutions for computer networks. The company's reputation for delivering high availability products, including the award-winning NEO Series of tape libraries sets the standard for intelligent, automated storage and scalability.

"We are very pleased with the enhancements we continue to see with Cognos Finance. The new advanced drill-through capabilities in Cognos Finance 6.0 will ensure that we can tightly integrate with all other systems and access all necessary transaction detail to gain the most accurate picture of financial performance in our company," said David Barbour, senior programmer and analyst, Overland Data. "We are excited about this new release and look forward to extending our Cognos Finance implementation within our company."