Toshiba America Business Solutions Deploys Cognos(R) Series 7 Across North American Business Portal

-- Leading manufacturer of office solutions selects Cognos Series 7 over host of competitive BI solutions, supports 15,000 users --

BURLINGTON, Mass., March 26, 2003 -- Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and performance management, announced today Toshiba America Business Solutions Division has deployed Cognos Series 7 across its Web-based business information portal for internal decision makers and 600 Toshiba dealers across North America. Selected from a host of other BI vendors including Business Objects, Cognos Series 7 was chosen based on scalability, superior zero- footprint Web performance, and fastest time to deploy.

With 15,000 users across North America, the Web-based Toshiba FYI portal will provide targeted Cognos Series 7 reports and analysis to internal stakeholders, supplying information on product sales and dealer performance. Internal stakeholders can determine overall division performance by territory and channel. Toshiba dealers can access information through the portal that is consolidated by the Cognos data integration solution, Cognos DecisionStream, to gain insight into their channel performance.

Designed to allow sophisticated analysis of information housed in an Oracle 11i eBusiness Suite running on the Sun Solaris operating system, Cognos Series 7 was able to demonstrate the most effective breadth and depth solution at the earliest stages of the project, providing fully integrated data integration, analysis, visualization and reporting. Cognos Series 7 also was selected for the ease and speed of developing and deploying Cognos DecisionStream, which supplies the mission-critical portal environment with consolidated performance information from massive amounts of data across distributed sources.

"Toshiba was looking for a comprehensive, integrated business intelligence solution that can scale to meet the needs of both our growing internal and dealer user communities. Cognos Series 7 provides internal stakeholders with tailor-made information about our divisional performance, allowing us to closely track our corporate performance," said Denise Fishel, director, eBusiness Planning and Development, eBusiness Technology Group, Toshiba America Business Solutions. "Cognos demonstrated incredible momentum, from early proof of concept to execution, deploying in record time. Today we are able to provide our extended enterprise with the information they need to make better decisions."

"Toshiba America Business Solutions is yet another customer to select Cognos based upon the performance of Cognos Series 7 in a highly collaborative environment. Ease of installation, speed of deployment, integration between the product components, zero-footprint, and scalability are critical differentiators for Cognos," said Dave Laverty, senior vice-president, global marketing Cognos.

About Toshiba America Business Solutions

Toshiba America Business Solutions, Inc. (TABS), manages product planning, marketing, sales, service support and distribution of copiers, facsimiles, multifunction printing products, network controllers and toner products throughout the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., TABS comprises four divisions: the Electronic Imaging Division, Toner Products Division, Document Solutions Engineering Division and TOPAC, a subsidiary which operates a network of office equipment dealers.

Named the most favored manufacturer in seven of the past eight years by the Business Technology Association (BTA), Toshiba's entire product line, customer support and marketing distribution policies are a marker for the industry. Among the many other awards garnered in recent years, Toshiba was named the "Copier Manufacturer of the Year" by the Marketing Research Consultants (MRC) in 1997, 1998, 2001 and 2002 and received the CIO Web Business award for its leading edge intranet site in 1998, 1999 and 2000.

TABS is an independent operating company of Toshiba Corp., the fifth largest electronics/electrical equipment company and the world's 77th largest company in terms of sales. Toshiba Corporation is a world leader in high technology products with more than 300 major subsidiaries and affiliates worldwide. Fiscal year revenue in 2001 was approximately $41 billion.

ABOUT COGNOS

Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and 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 22,000 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.

    Media Contact:
     Tanya Pobuda
     Cognos, 613-738-1440

     Samantha Smith
     Horn Group Inc., 781-356-7139

    Investor Relations:
     John Lawlor
     Cognos, 613-738-3503


                

SOURCE Cognos
Web Site: http://www.cognos.com