Cognos Honors Global Public Sector Customers for Outstanding Achievement in Performance Management

– Leading customers recognized at Cognos Government Forum for innovation, thought-leadership, and success –

Ottawa, Ontario and Burlington, Massachusetts, May 2, 2005 - Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management (CPM), last week awarded its inaugural Global Public Sector Leadership Awards to five customers who have demonstrated outstanding success in organizational performance management using Cognos solutions. The awards were presented at the 2nd annual Cognos Government Forum, held April 27at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington D.C.

The United States Coast Guard (http://www.uscg.mil) received the Cognos Award for Excellence in Public Sector, which recognizes a customer who has capitalized on Cognos performance management software to more effectively accomplish the overarching mission of the organization. The Coast Guard uses Cognos to deliver a singular view of personalized, customized Readiness information and analytics, helping more than 40,000 users across the agency improve decision-making and program management.

“The Coast Guard must be ready at all times to execute our many safety and security missions in the maritime domain. Readiness information at all levels of the organization must aid decision makers in understanding the most pressing issues of capability and capacity," said Commander Todd Watanabe, program manager, Readiness Management System, at the U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters. “We use Cognos BI tools as part of our Readiness Management System that allows us to measure and monitor our state of Readiness across the entire Coast Guard.”

“The success of Coast Guard’s Readiness initiative is a clear demonstration of Cognos’ commitment to provide large public sector organizations with 'no compromise' performance management functionality,” said Terence Atkinson, director of public sector solutions at Cognos. “Through the expert guidance of Commander Watanabe and the Readiness team, the Coast Guard is now able to capitalize on a deeper analysis and a comprehensive view of personnel and equipment readiness status, in near-real-time, across all units to more effectively manage readiness and allocate resources accordingly. This was a complex and important undertaking worthy of this kind of recognition."

Other awards presented at the Government Forum included:

• Cognos Recognition Award for Increasing Organization Performance in the Public Sector , which distinguishes a Cognos customer who has developed a back-office application, such HR or Finance, that delivered such significant value to the organization that it is now considered a critical system. Cognos recognized the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division (http://www.nswc.navy.mil). With a fundamental information requirement to deliver timely, integrated, validated business information to the desktop, NSWC is using Cognos BI to continuously fulfill information delivery requirements of operational data from a multitude of systems, across the organization, even as the requirements and systems have evolved over time.
  
  
• Cognos Recognition Award for Enhancing Mission Effectiveness in the Public Sector , which honors a Cognos customer who has developed a mission-critical application that has enabled front-line staff to work more effectively. This year’s award went to School District of Palm Beach (FL) County
  (http://www.palmbeach.k12.fl.us). Today, more than 1,000 administrators, guidance counselors, teachers and office staff use Cognos to gain continuous visibility into the performance of over 170,000 students across more than 160 K-12 schools. Staff can now identify student performance issues early on, take appropriate corrective measures, and proliferate program success, ensuring that the school district is able to continuously improve the quality of education its students receive.
  
  
• Cognos Recognition Award for Enhancing Operational Readiness in the Defense Sector , which recognizes a Cognos defense customer who has developed an application that increases visibility and insight into the organization’s ‘state of readiness’. Cognos presented the award to U.S. Naval Air Systems (NAVAIR) (http://www.navair.navy.mil). Using Cognos BI Series, NAVAIR built two critical applications that are used to support air craft material readiness, supply and maintenance management, and component reliability and maintenance. NAVAIR officers are able to access critical operations information in just minutes instead of weeks, and can benchmark against pre-determined key performance indicators to ensure a continuous state of readiness.
  
  
• Cognos Recognition Award for Building the Performance Culture in the Public Sector , which honors a Cognos customer who demonstrates commitment to adopting a performance management culture across the agency. This year, Cognos honored the Dutch Police
  (http://www.politie.nl/Overige/English), where Cognos BI has been broadly deployed across all 26 police regions as a standard reporting and analysis environment against GIDS (Integrated Interactive Database for Strategic Management Information). Responding to citizens’ demand for greater value for their tax dollars, the Dutch Police recently implemented a program in which every police region would be measured against a standard set of performance metrics. Using Cognos Metrics Manager to build its own scorecard, the Region Brabant Zuid-Oost succeeded in exceeding all of its performance goals, and has become an example to the other regions. The Dutch Police are clearly on the road to driving a culture of performance excellence across all regional police forces.

“Cognos performance management software helps public sector organizations turn strategy into action. The Recognition Awards distinguish those particular customers who have embraced the Cognos philosophy and, by consequence, serve as real-life examples of how to successfully take performance to the next level,” added Atkinson.

About Cognos Government Forum
(Featuring Colin L. Powell, USA, RET):
The Cognos Government Forum is a premier event that brings together speakers and delegates from across federal civilian, defense, and state/local agencies. This year’s event – held April 27, 2005 in Washington D.C. – attracted over 500 delegates and featured keynotes addresses from former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, USA (Ret), Bob Stone, Energizer in Chief of Public Strategies Group, and Commander Janet E. Stevens, U.S. Coast Guard. The event also showcased breakout sessions that demonstrated how Cognos performance management software helps public sector officials improve visibility into performance across their agencies, tie program success to budget allocation, and increase responsiveness and organizational effectiveness.

About Cognos:
Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management, delivers software and services that help companies drive, monitor and understand corporate performance.

Cognos delivers the next level of competitive advantage - Corporate Performance Management (CPM) - achieved through the strategic application of BI on an enterprise scale. Our integrated CPM solution helps customers drive performance through planning; monitor performance through scorecarding; and understand performance through business intelligence.

Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in over 135 countries. Cognos enterprise business intelligence and performance management solutions and services are also available from more than 3,000 worldwide partners and resellers. For more information, visit the Cognos Web site at http://www.cognos.com.