Burlington, MA, December 17, 2003—Cognos, (NASDAQ: COGN; TSX: CSN) the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management solutions, today announced that the State of Ohio has entered into a strategic partnership to implement the Cognos EBI Series on a statewide basis. Leveraging the collective bargaining power of the individual agencies, the partnership will allow the State to improve operational efficiencies and provide enhanced service delivery to Ohio citizens on an enterprise level. The multimillion-dollar agreement, which already has identified significant cost-saving opportunities, allows thousands of government employees to identify trends, data relationships and better manage performance.

Cognos EBI Series will enable the State of Ohio to drive performance management throughout all State agencies, boards and commissions by aligning agency-specific strategic goals and execution. Employees in over 200 state agencies will have self-service access to Cognos' dynamic reporting and analytical capabilities in order to make better decisions and track performance. The partnership will also allow the State to address key issues such as improved human capital management, inter-agency sharing of data and reduction in cross-trained employees.

With Cognos, the State can communicate more effectively and manage integrated agency and program objectives. The solution will allow thousands of state employees to create, modify and distribute any agency information necessary for decision-making on a self-service basis, reducing the need for additional solutions and ultimately lowering the total cost of ownership.

"The State of Ohio is clearly on the path to making its organization more efficient and effective. Its partnership with Cognos underscores the fact that governments are on the leading edge, across all organizations, of adopting management strategies to maximize performance and effectively manage the public trust," said Joe Lally, vice president, government and education, Cognos. "Aggressively tackling the complexities of statewide performance requires leadership commitment supported by the richest, most robust performance management solution on the market. The functionality and flexibility delivered by the Cognos solution will help put the State of Ohio on the path to continuous performance improvement across all agencies."