BURLINGTON, MA, October 8 2002—Cognos® (Nasdaq:COGN; TSX:CSN), the world leader in business intelligence (BI), today announced that its Global Customer Services Portal (http://support.cognos.com) has been recognized as one of the Ten Best Web Support Sites of 2002. The prestigious industry award is given by the Association of Support Professionals (ASP), an international organization dedicated to the advancement of the technical support profession.

This is third straight time that the Cognos Global Customer Services Portal has been named to the annual Ten Best list and the sixth award for online customer support excellence that the Portal has garnered in the past three years.

The Cognos Global Customer Services Portal provides customers with a complete, integrated set of consulting, training, and support services, offered 24x7, worldwide. The highly flexible and fully customized service helps global customers achieve maximum business impact with their Cognos BI solutions in the shortest time possible.

The annual "Ten Best" awards customer support Web sites on the basis of overall usability, design, and navigation, knowledgebase and search implementation, interactive features, personalization, and the overall success overcoming major development challenges.

Cognos shares this year's award with technology leaders such as Cisco Systems, Microsoft Great Plains, and Network Associates. A panel of customer support experts evaluated 63 different sites worldwide, which provide online support for everything from software, PC hardware, telecommunications, corporate applications, and online services.

By continuously offering new ways for customers to generate greater value from their Cognos solutions, the Cognos Portal serves as a "model of how to deliver support on the Web," said ASP executive director Jeffrey Tarter.

"The Cognos Global Customer Services Portal is a clear example of online customer support innovation and excellence," Tarter said. "Our membership recognizes the power and importance of delivering online support to the user community. Cognos is clearly a technology leader driving some of the most sophisticated advances in the Web support field."

"Being named by the ASP to the 'Ten Best' Web Support Sites list is a tremendous honor and a huge credit to Cognos' dedicated and talented staff of customer support professionals. Cognos is an organization dedicated not only to delivering industry-leading solutions but being a total business partner with our customers. The Cognos Global Customer Services Portal is a powerful extension of that ongoing vision," said Dave Achtemichuk, Cognos vice president of worldwide customer services.

More information about the ASP can be found at http://www.asponline.com/.