COGNOS' IMPROMPTU WINS PRODUCT OF THE YEAR AWARD

IMPROMPTU IS INFOWORLD'S "BEST OF 1995" FOR QUERY AND REPORTING TOOLS

BURLINGTON, MASS., JANUARY 30, 1996 -- Cognos (NASDAQ:COGNF;TSE:CSN) today
announced Impromptu, Cognos' query and reporting tool, has just been named
an InfoWorld 1995 Product of the Year winner. InfoWorld's Test Center
chose Impromptu for this prestigious award based primarily on the October
23, 1995 review in which Impromptu beat the top four competitive products
in the InfoWorld Report Writer Product Comparison. Impromptu also received
the editors' "Hot Pick" award because of its "all-around superiority" and
high marks in end user-oriented tasks.

Citing Impromptu's "impressive speed," Infoworld noted that "the size of
the return set doesn't seem to bother it; Impromptu spits out 50,000
records as fast as it does 5,000." Infoworld also noted that Impromptu
"has the ease of use and flexibility that will make it a favorite of
data-thirsty end users, combined with the hefty security and
administration facilities needed to satisfy an frazzled database
manager."

Infoworld's "Product of the Year" feature is a yearly roundup of the most
important products, people and trends in the computer industry. This year
Impromptu shared the spotlight with other major products and companies
including: Microsoft's Visual Basic 4.0 and SQL Server 6.0, Symantec C++
7.x, Borland's Paradox 7.0, Netscape Navigator 2.0, IBM's ThinkPad 701C
and Hewlett-Packard's HP DeskJet 1600CM Office Printer.

"As thousands of companies worldwide are now beginning to realize, Business
Intelligence tools such as our Impromptu and PowerPlay fulfill the
original promise of the data warehouse: putting the enormous competitive
power of data access and analysis directly in the hands of every manager
in the business," said Alan Rottenberg, Cognos's senior vice president,
Business Intelligence Tools. "Infoworld's selection of Impromptu is a very
gratifying recognition of our success in addressing this overwhelming need
through a unique blend of power, usability and manageability."

The October 1995 Infoworld review ranked Impromptu 3.0, Crystal Reports
Professional 4.0, ReportSmith 2.5 for Windows, Esperant 3.0 and
BusinessObjects 3.1. An overview of the comparison is available at Cognos'
World Wide Web site at "http://www.cognos.com" and the full comparison is
available from Cognos at 1-800-426-4667, x2075.

PRICING

Impromptu 3.0 is an interactive database query and reporting tool, designed
specifically for the demands of enterprise deployment. It requires
Microsoft Windows 3.1 or higher and a 386 or higher PC with 8 MB RAM and
20 MB hard drive space. Impromptu's single-copy price is $595 for the end
user's Enterprise version, and $695 for the Administrator version, with
discounts available for volume purchases.

COGNOS

Cognos is the global leader in providing business intelligence software to
satisfy enterprise-wide data access and analysis needs. With over 200,000
seats in thousands of companies worldwide, PowerPlay and Impromptu
consistently service the widest range of users across corporate,
departmental, workgroup, personal and mobile applications. The products
support over 100 relational and OLAP data sources and are available in
seven major languages. Cognos Business Intelligence products are sold
through the company's 40 sales offices and over 350 resellers around the
globe.

Cognos develops, markets and supports -- both directly and through
resellers worldwide -- advanced client/server tools for data access, data
analysis and application development on a wide range of open and
proprietary computing platforms. Cognos is a publicly held company with
dual headquarters in Ottawa, Canada and Burlington, MA. Cognos' World Wide
Web address is http://www.cognos.com.
 
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