BURLINGTON MA, July 21, 2003—Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management (CPM), today announced it has significantly strengthened its industry-leading enterprise scorecarding solution with the launch of Cognos Metrics Manager Version 2. This release expands Cognos' leadership in the enterprise scorecarding and CPM markets, and includes a broad range of customer-driven functionality, flexibility, and scalability enhancements. Cognos has also strengthened its CPM solution by further integrating enterprise scorecarding with Cognos Analytic Applications, Cognos Enterprise Planning Series and Cognos Enterprise BI Series 7 Version 2.

"Enterprise scorecarding is a strategic core for performance management in any global organization that is looking to be effective in their business. Cognos continues to advance its offering in this important market," said Mark Smith, senior vice president research at Ventana Research. "The scorecarding capabilities in Cognos Metrics Manager Version 2 are more flexible through enhanced personalization and the ability to provide even more relevant information to users. These enhancements will save corporations significant time and money in taking action and driving results."

As companies face the challenges of increasing competition, limited resources and governance regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, performance management becomes an enterprise requirement. Scorecarding, a critical component of performance management, has expanded beyond the executive office to reach every desk in the organization. As a result, traditional spreadsheet applications have become stretched beyond their intended capacities. Cognos Metrics Manager Version 2 was specifically designed to tackle the rigors of true enterprise scorecarding, enabling companies to elevate corporate performance by linking strategy, people, and information assets across the organization.

"Cognos Metrics Manager gives us the ability to monitor and understand factors impacting our performance every day," said Dirk Smith, director, programs and risk management at Alberta Workers' Compensation Board. "We expect the impressive scalability and performance advancements of Cognos Manager Version 2 will enable us to align the efforts of employees by putting rich, dynamic scorecards on desktops across our organization."

Cognos Metrics Manager Version 2 will enable:

User Empowerment
Cognos Metrics Manager Version 2 empowers users by delivering the information they need, whenever and wherever they need it. Personalized views of key metrics give each individual access to the metrics and supporting information that matters to them. Real-time monitoring, alerting and event detection capabilities through e-mail and mobile devices ensure information is delivered to the right people at the right time.

Deep Insight and Analysis
The rich assessment capabilities in this release deliver unprecedented levels of insight into the metrics. In one consolidated display, users can view a metric, understand the underlying performance measures impacting that metric, and be guided toward supporting data and reports for additional visibility into performance issues or patterns. In addition, Cognos Metrics Manager Version 2 extends Cognos' market-leading BI capabilities to scorecarding customers with its full support of Cognos Enterprise BI Series 7 Version 2.

Powerful Metrics Management
Cognos Metrics Manager Version 2 delivers the industry's most powerful and scalable scorecarding solution, expanding beyond the executive office to support tens of thousands of scorecards and hundreds of thousands of individual metrics. Also, comprehensive support for leading applications servers including IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogic and SunOne enables the creation of one centralized pool of metrics, providing a consistent 360-degree view of the entire business.

"Cognos Metrics Manager Version 2 truly raises the bar for enterprise scorecard performance and scalability," Dan Volitich, John Daniel Associates. "Our customers have always been impressed with the easy-to-use functionality of Cognos Metrics Manager. We expect the enhanced personalization capabilities in this latest release will deliver even more value from this already outstanding scorecarding solution."

Extending Scorecarding Across The Cognos CPM Solution
Cognos has also enhanced its overall corporate performance management offering with tighter integration across the entire Cognos solution set. Cognos Analytic Applications now embrace Cognos Metrics Manager Version 2, offering users one single view of their business, and driving improved accuracy, consistency and alignment across the performance management cycle. Simplified point-and-click functionality ensures timely and reliable loading of information from the applications into the scorecards, and over 650 pre-defined metrics built into the applications helps accelerates scorecard deployment across the enterprise. In addition, Cognos has extended scorecarding to its industry-leading Cognos Enterprise Planning Series, including the capability to automatically generate scorecards with seed metrics and target values.

"Cognos has been a leader in enterprise scorecarding for over four years, while other vendors are only now beginning to embrace this exciting market," said Robin McNeil, vice president corporate performance management. "Cognos Metrics Manager Version 2 expands our leadership in corporate performance management as scorecarding becomes a strategic imperative to performance-driven enterprises around the globe."