New Analyst Report Confirms Cognos as a Leading Performance Management Vendor by Revenue: Technology Research Firm's Financial Performance & St

BURLINGTON, Mass. (Business Wire EON) November 5, 2007 -- According to IDC, Financial Performance and Strategy Management (FPSM) software consists of applications that measure, analyze, and optimize financial and business performance and analytic processes that support enterprise-wide initiatives typically driven by finance. This includes the application areas of budgeting and planning, financial consolidation, strategy management and profitability management. The report shows that of all independent pure-play BI and performance management-focused vendors, Cognos has the highest market share based on 2006 revenue(2).

"Cognos continues to maintain its market position while focusing on the important elements of delivering a strong FPSM solution and strategy. Three main themes continue to drive its efforts: standardization and the requirements for a strong performance management platform; the importance of complementing an ERP solution with specialized FPSM applications, and accelerating implementations through the use of performance blueprints," said Kathleen Wilhide research director of BMP and GRC solutions at IDC. "IDC views the acquisition of Applix by Cognos very positively - it almost doubles the number of performance management customers for Cognos, and the Applix in-memory OLAP engine also strengthens the overall Cognos Business Intelligence platform. Cognos has the ability to deliver on short-term requirements and execute on a long-term vision as a focused, independent performance management company."

Cognos Financial Performance Management solutions enable enterprises to continuously align resources and opportunities with strategic objectives while ensuring cost-effective and sustainable compliance. With offerings that automate and transform planning, budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and analysis processes; co-ordinate, control, and automate the close, consolidate, and reporting process and support analysis and optimization of company performance, finance can dramatically improve corporate reporting, management control and decision-making effectiveness across the enterprise.

"Our market position as the leading pure play, independent performance management vendor and the fastest growth position attained by Applix in the IDC report are clear validations of our strategy. Cognos now stands as the leading Independent Performance Management provider in the market. We are committed to giving customers equal access to our entire infrastructure, applications and data sources," said Dave Laverty, chief marketing officer and senior vice president, Cognos. "This is a great position for us to be in. Unlike other vendors who are consolidating share and duplicating product lines, we are committed to providing customers who wrestle with disparate transaction systems and data sources with a single, elegant software platform and business focus on performance management."

About Cognos:

Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions, provides world-class enterprise planning and BI software and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance.

Cognos brings together technology, analytical applications, best practices, and a broad network of partners to give customers a complete performance system. The Cognos performance system is an open and adaptive solution that leverages an organization's ERP, packaged applications, and database investments. It gives customers the ability to answer the questions -- How are we doing? Why are we on or off track? What should we do about it? - and enables them to understand and monitor current performance while planning future business strategies.

Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in more than 135 countries, and its top 100 enterprise customers consistently outperform market indexes. Cognos 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

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.

Note to Editors: Copies of previous Cognos press releases and Corporate and product information are available on Cognos' Web site at http://www.cognos.com

(1) IDC, "Worldwide Financial Performance and Strategy Management Software 2006 Vendor Shares: Impact of Market Consolidation Frenzy," Doc # 209241, October 2007.

(2) Ibid.