OTTAWA, ON, September 27, 2000—Cognos^® (Nasdaq: COGN; TSE: CSN) the world's largest and most successful business intelligence company, today announced that Hydro-Quebec, one of North America's largest power producers, has selected the Cognos enterprise reporting and analysis solution. Building on previous implementations, Hydro-Quebec will roll out the Cognos solution to more than 2,000 new users across several business units. The expansion within Hydro-Quebec demonstrates Cognos' ongoing success in delivering solutions that add business value to North America's largest organizations.

The zero-footprint, Web-based Cognos solution will provide Hydro-Quebec employees with the ability to access, analyze, and report on in-depth financial information through the Cognos business intelligence portal with no assistance from technical staff. Employees will use Cognos to bring forward consistent and accurate data, and to gain a unified view of the business, along with unique insights that will act as catalysts for action and accelerate the decision-making process.

"We are making the leap into the Internet age, and have chosen business intelligence (BI) from Cognos to help us make that transition," said Pierre Lemieux, of Development and Maintenance Applications at Hydro-Quebec. "Cognos provides an end-to-end enterprise solution through the simplicity of a Web browser, allowing us to streamline management processes and therefore drive our main goal of internal customer satisfaction."

In addition to financial analysis, management and executives will use the Cognos solution to track key performance indicators, monitor profitability of energy trading and sales to other carriers, and perform budgeting and financial forecasting.

A long-standing customer, Hydro-Quebec has used Cognos Powerhouse since the 1980s, and BI from Cognos since the beginning of 1998.

"Cognos' excellent performance was an important factor when selecting a BI vendor for this most recent purchase," said Mr. Lemieux.

"Hydro-Quebec is an excellent testament to the value Cognos can provide to utility companies, and in fact any large enterprise," said Joanne K. Masingill, Cognos' senior vice president of marketing. "Cognos' zero-footprint Web deployment allows customers to deploy powerful enterprise business intelligence solutions both quickly and easily, ensuring the maximum return on investment and improved business processes which are critical to continued growth and competitiveness."

Hydro-Quebec
Hydro-Québec, a publicly-owned company with a single shareholder, the Québec government, has the primary mission to meet the needs of 3.5 million residential, commercial, institutional and industrial customers in Québec. In addition, it supplies electricity to the Northeastern United States, Ontario and New Brunswick. With revenues of over C$9 billion, available capacity in excess of 36,000 MW, annual sales totalling 171 TWh and its 19,000 employees, Hydro-Québec is a leading producer of green energy and a major distributor in North America. To learn more about Hydro-Québec, visit our Web site at : http://www.hydroquebec.com.