Cognos in Leaders Quadrant in New Analyst Report on Business Intelligence

— Magic Quadrant Report Positions Cognos in leaders quadrant based on completeness of vision and ability to execute —

BURLINGTON, MA, December 2, 2004 — Cognos (NASDAQ: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management, today announced it has again been positioned in the leaders quadrant of Gartner's Enterprise Business Intelligence Magic Quadrant1. According to Gartner, Inc., leaders are vendors who are performing well today, have a clear vision of market direction, and are actively building competencies to sustain their leadership position in the market.

Cognos continues to expand its leadership position in BI on the strength of its Cognos Enterprise BI Series, the industry's most comprehensive business intelligence solution, and delivering on its vision of CPM. Cognos EBI Series includes an Open BI Platform with a Web services API, an open Portal, open Security, and open Metadata. It also includes the market's broadest suite of BI capabilities including Cognos ReportNet™ for reporting and ad hoc query, Cognos® PowerPlay for OLAP analysis, and advanced solutions for visualization, event management, dashboarding, and data integration.

"Enterprise customers are looking for innovation, integration, and the lowest overall cost of ownership from a single BI strategic supplier," said Rob Ashe, Cognos president and chief executive officer. "We believe the positioning by Gartner confirms the continued momentum Cognos enjoys in the BI market, the award-winning quality and innovation of our products like Cognos ReportNet, and the strength of our vision."

Cognos ReportNet is meeting the needs of hundreds of today's multi-national, diversified enterprises. Built upon a service-oriented architecture, Cognos ReportNet scales to hundreds of thousands of users. The solution is currently the reporting standard for a number of customers and partners worldwide, including Symantec, the global leader in information security; The Austrian Airlines Group, the leading airline in the Austrian market; and Werner, the leader in the design, production, marketing and distribution of climbing products in the United States.

For complete details on Gartner's November 2004 BI Magic Quadrant, visit the Cognos Web site at www.cognos.com/news/analyst_reviews.html.

ABOUT COGNOS
Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management, delivers software that helps 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 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.

---

Magic Quadrant Disclaimer
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted November 2004 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Cognos and the Cognos logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cognos Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

¹ Magic Quadrant for Enterprise BI Suites and Platforms, 2H04 H. Dresner, B. Hostmann, F. Buytendijk 29 November 2004

Note to Editors:
Copies of previous Cognos press releases and Corporate and product information are available on Cognos' Web site at www.cognos.com, and at PR Newswire's site at
www.prnewswire.com.