Friday, November 18, 2005

Cognos 8 Business Intelligence Now Generally Available for Customers Worldwide

Decision makers across the enterprise gain a more consistent, accurate
view of information to better manage performance.

OTTAWA and BURLINGTON.- the world leader in business intelligence and
corporate performance management (CPM), today announced the immediate
general availability of Cognos 8 Business Intelligence, the industry's
first solution that delivers complete BI capabilities in a single
product, on a single Web Services-based architecture.

Today's CIOs and business leaders require a BI solution that delivers
a complete view of business issues for high value decision-making on a
global scale. Cognos 8 BI is a groundbreaking product that addresses
this need by providing decision makers at all levels of the enterprise
with a consistent, accurate view of information to better manage
performance.

As a single product that easily integrates into existing
infrastructures with multiple systems and data sources, Cognos 8 BI is
a robust technology foundation for BI standardization and corporate
performance management.

BI is a top strategic priority for organizations worldwide. In a
recent Gartner EXP CIO survey, BI was listed as No. 2 on the 2005 CIO
top 10 technology priority list, up from No. 10 in 2004.* IDC's recent
Market Watch survey also ranks BI as no. 2 on the "CIO To-Do List" for
2006.**

Showcased to more than 20,000 decision makers worldwide, Cognos 8 BI
is the only solution to deliver a simplified, zero-footprint interface
for all users, authors and administrators. Easy to integrate, deploy
and use, Cognos 8 BI delivers a simplified BI environment that drives
high user adoption and speeds decision-making with relevant,
actionable information in the right language and format. Role-based
licensing provides flexibility for customers to quickly implement the
capabilities they require as they need them.

Cognos 8 BI has also gained overwhelmingly positive reviews from
industry analyst thought leaders since its market introduction:

AMR Research
"The release of Cognos 8 BI continues to raise the stakes for BI
standardization ... Cognos' SOA design aids functionality and
agility."(1)

Bloor Research
"Cognos 8 has two big advantages over its competitors: it has a
unified architecture, which not all of its rivals do; and it has Event
Studio, which is a major differentiator."(2)

Nucleus Research
"With this new release of its business intelligence platform, Cognos
is making it easier for companies to standardize on its tools to
handle all aspects of business analytics, reporting, and
measurement."(3)

Ventana Research
"We believe the release of Cognos 8 BI strengthens Cognos' market
position. The product is a strong option for organizations seeking to
standardize their BI product portfolio. With its broad set of
functions, tighter integration and new capabilities, Cognos 8 is a
strong competitor."(11)

These published reports address BI standardization; competitive
differentiators, the product's Services Oriented Architecture and key
new features such as extended open data access, dimensional reporting
and dynamic dashboards, comparative analysis against
multi-dimensionally modeled relational or OLAP data, event management
and process integration, and actionable scorecards.

"The market paradigm shift underscored by the industry research and
led by Cognos 8 Business Intelligence is the latest phase in the
evolution of BI from a departmental 'nice-to-have' to a strategic
'must-have' solution," said Rob Ashe, president and CEO, Cognos.
"Cognos 8 BI delivers a single platform that goes beyond mere 'suite
integration' by providing the complete spectrum of capabilities
enterprises need to achieve their BI goals. It's a modern BI platform
tailored to deliver the proven reliability our customers enjoy and our
prospects seek."

Network Computing Magazine recently awarded Cognos BI its Editor's
Choice in a rigorous competitive review of leading vendors. Featured
in the Oct. 13, 2005 cover story of Network Computing, the review
cites Cognos BI's excellence in data presentation and web-based
reporting capabilities as key to its selection. See:
http://www.cognos.com/news/releases/2005/1013.html.

Cognos is positioned in the Gartner "leaders" quadrant for both the
CPM Suites, 2005 and Enterprise Business Intelligence Suites and
Platforms, 2H04 reports(22). See:
http://www.cognos.com/news/releases/2005/1107.html

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

About the Magic Quadrant
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted October 2005 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 vendor's 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.

*Source: Gartner "BI Software Becoming a Top Priority for CIOs," by
Colleen Graham, March 2, 2005.
**Source: IDC European Market Watch Survey Q3 2005.

(1) AMR Research Outlook: Cognos 8 BI: Another Example of Why
Architecture Matters, Dennis Gaughan, John Hagerty, Ryan Garvey, Sept.
13, 2005.
(2) Bloor Research: Unification versus integration, Philip Howard, Sept.
23, 2005.
(3) NUCLEUS RESEARCH, Research Note: Cognos 8, Sept. 2005.
(11)Cognos Offers a Sneak Peek at Version 8: September BI Suite Release
Tightens Integration and Unifies UI, by Eric Rogge, Ventana Research,
July 15, 2005.
(22)Source: "Magic Quadrant for CPM Suites, 2005" N. Rayner, F.
Buytendijk, L. Geishecker November 4, 2005 and Magic Quadrant for
Enterprise BI Suites and Platforms, 2H04 H. Dresner, B. Hostmann, F.
Buytendijk 29 November 2004. To read the full reports visit:
http://www.cognos.com/news/analyst_reviews.html?lid=//News//Industry%20Analyst
%20Reviews

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.

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