Business Objects Receives Overwhelming Praise for BusinessObjects XI f

Business Objects Receives Overwhelming Praise for BusinessObjects XI from Key Channel Partners

    Business Editors/High-Tech Editors

    SAN JOSE, Calif. & PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 11, 2005--

Industry-Leading Business Intelligence Platform Offers Partners Extreme Insight from a Trusted Platform to Drive Joint Customer Success
    Business Objects (Nasdaq: BOBJ)(Euronext Paris ISIN code: FR0004026250-BOB), the world's leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced widespread channel partner support of BusinessObjects(TM) XI, the industry's most advanced and complete BI platform.
    BusinessObjects XI is the first and only BI platform that delivers a complete set of market-leading BI capabilities: best-in-class reporting, query and analysis, performance management, and data integration. BusinessObjects XI completes the integration of the Crystal and Business Objects product lines, and introduces significant innovations that will deliver BI in new ways to a much broader set of users. This groundbreaking platform will drive much wider adoption of BI in organizations, and will allow companies to standardize on a single advanced platform for all of their BI needs.
    Business Objects has the largest and most comprehensive partner network in the business intelligence industry, with more than 3,000 partners around the world. The company's channel partners cover a variety of categories, including technology, OEM, VAR, and volume resellers or distributors, and extend across all major vertical industries.
    Business Objects paid particular attention to the broad spectrum of partner and customer needs with this groundbreaking business intelligence platform. BusinessObjects XI delivers unmatched return on investment by providing extreme insight and extending the benefits of business intelligence to a larger number of users within an organization. In addition, BusinessObjects XI is built on a trusted platform that is easy to deploy and provides the reliability and scalability necessary to enable companies to standardize on Business Objects for all business intelligence and performance management initiatives.
    BusinessObjects XI has garnered key endorsements from a large number of the company's industry-leading channel partners, including:

    ADVIZOR Solutions

    "Many of our customers already benefit from the integration between Business Objects and ADVIZOR software, and the launch of BusinessObjects XI will provide additional benefits for joint customers," says Douglas Cogswell, president and CEO of ADVIZOR Solutions. "Partnering with Business Objects ensures that our customers have a range of options that support their business intelligence and performance management initiatives."

    Attunity

    "The vision behind BusinessObjects XI--giving users the information they need in a way they understand it--meshes perfectly with Attunity's vision of information utility," said Dan Potter, vice president of marketing at Attunity. "Attunity is all about dramatically simplifying the access, integration, and delivery of enterprise information on demand. Our expertise in real-time enterprise information integration and change data capture, combined with BusinessObjects XI, will allow customers to knock down data silos and take maximum advantage of legacy and mainframe data assets for BI and reporting."

    Cartesis

    "The launch of Business Objects XI is another significant development for Business Objects, and Cartesis looks forward to partnering with Business Objects to deliver best of breed integrated solutions to our clients," said Charles Muldoon, vice president of alliances at Cartesis, Inc. "Our customers demand seamlessly integrated solutions, and the delivery of Cartesis Magnitude with Business Objects technology provides increased efficiency, transparency, and improved performance management across the enterprise."

    Firstlogic

    "Access to accurate information across the enterprise drives better business decisions," commented Joe Zurawski, vice president of alliances and product management at data quality software provider Firstlogic, Inc. "The tight integration of our world-class data quality solutions with BusinessObjects Data Integrator XI provides organizations with a better approach to business intelligence."

    Longview Solutions

    "As a Business Objects partner we are eager to introduce the newest version of their industry-leading BI platform to our Global 2000 customers using Longview's Strategic Finance solution to drive their performance with speed and visibility," said Susan Gershman, chief marketing officer at Longview Solutions. "Longview's solution is used by hundreds and thousands of users within an enterprise; it will be incredibly powerful for our customers to have the capability to scale BusinessObjects XI to equally great numbers of users within their organizations. Our customers can experience insight not only into financial data through Longview's solution but, through BusinessObjects XI, also into massive amounts of data from their other corporate systems."

    MetaMatrix

    "The combination of MetaMatrix's industry leading EII solutions and the Business Objects market leading BI platform provides our joint customers with the unique ability to make enterprise-wide data accessible and manageable, thereby increasing the usability of information for a broader set of BI users," said Joe Chappell, CEO of MetaMatrix. "We are thrilled to announce support and certification of the complete BusinessObjects XI platform. Using BusinessObjects XI, organizations are now able to deploy a standardized approach to enterprise scale business intelligence, maximizing corporate performance and reducing the total cost of ownership of BI."

    MySQL

    "Enterprise customers have asked us to provide an integrated business intelligence and reporting solution for their open source database applications," said Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL AB. "With BusinessObjects XI support for MySQL, these users can now take advantage of the performance and cost advantages of our database, while knowing that both companies will stand behind the software with quality-assurance and professional support."

    Netezza

    "Business Objects remains a strategic partner for Netezza and we are excited about the new BusinessObjects XI platform as it adds to the combined value proposition that we bring to the market," said Bill Doyle, Vice president of channel sales at Netezza. "The extended capabilities of BusinessObjects XI are well matched with the break-through performance, ease-of-use, and scalability advantages that the Netezza enterprise-class data warehouse solution was designed to offer. Together, our companies remain focused on delivering a powerful business intelligence foundation that allows our customers to fully leverage their enterprise data and quickly uncover insights that result in greater business success. With existing shared marquis customers as references and a strengthened value proposition, we continue to build strong momentum and look forward to re-shaping the business intelligence landscape."

    Sense Corp.

    "Sense Corp sees great client benefits with the launch of the BusinessObjects XI platform, especially the new version of BusinessObjects Data Integrator," said Peter Siegel, principal at Sense Corp. "The built-in auditing and data validation capabilities are stronger than ever and absolutely essential in the current age of higher external scrutiny, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, and heightened internal demands for trusted information. In addition, the numerous performance and productivity enhancements, including native change data capture, put Data Integrator XI as a stand-alone, best-of-breed integration toolset."

    SRC Software

    "With the introduction of BusinessObjects XI, solutions from SRC Software and Business Objects can now be tightly integrated, ensuring that customers have a best-of-breed business intelligence platform coupled with a best-of-breed CPM suite," stated Steve Reiff, chief technology officer of SRC Software. "Customers can view performance dashboards that are integrated real-time with sophisticated planning and modeling applications, providing a true closed-loop performance management cycle."

    Theoris

    "In today's business environment, decision-makers need on-demand access to all the trusted data sources they depend on, not just the data contained in a single data warehouse or application," said Michael Brooks, vice president of strategic alliances at Theoris, Inc. "BusinessObjects XI is a step in the right direction towards enabling businesses to be more competitive without the constraints of traditional BI tools."

    The Wynden Group

    "Having tested BusinessObjects XI during the beta program, we are very excited about the new business intelligence platform from Business Objects," said Malcolm Wynden from The Wynden Group. "We were looking for new features that made Crystal Reports even easier to learn and use. The tabbed windows for each open report, coupled with the HTML preview window, make report development faster and easier for companies and will lead to increased usage of the solution. We plan to recommend BusinessObjects XI for clients looking to improve their report development productivity within their organizations, both for existing and new Business Objects deployments."

    WIT, Inc.

    "We are very excited about the new business intelligence suite from Business Objects," said Quaid Saifee, a director from WIT Inc., a Platinum partner of Business Objects based in Troy, Michigan. "Product enhancements in BusinessObjects XI, like threaded discussions providing for business user collaboration and the new BI Encyclopedia, should result in greater use of corporate information assets across the entire organization. We look forward to most of our current clients upgrading their Business Objects deployments to BusinessObjects XI, and also see many new customers leveraging the latest Business Objects solutions to improve performance within their organizations."

    About Business Objects

    Business Objects is the world's leading business intelligence (BI) software company. With more than 29,000 customers worldwide, including over 80 percent of the Fortune 500, Business Objects helps organizations gain better insight into their business, improve decision making, and optimize enterprise performance. The company's business intelligence platform, BusinessObjects(TM) XI, offers the BI industry's most advanced and complete platform for reporting, query and analysis, performance management, and data integration. BusinessObjects XI includes Crystal Reports(R), the industry standard for enterprise reporting. Business Objects has also built the industry's strongest and most diverse partner community, with more than 3,000 partners worldwide. In addition, the company offers consulting and education services to help customers effectively deploy their business intelligence projects.
    Business Objects has dual headquarters in San Jose, Calif., and Paris, France. The company's stock is traded on both the Nasdaq (BOBJ) and Euronext Paris (ISIN: FR0004026250 - BOB) stock exchanges. More information about Business Objects can be found at www.businessobjects.com.

    Business Objects, the Business Objects logo, BusinessObjects, WebIntelligence, Crystal Reports, Crystal Enterprise, Crystal Analysis, RapidMarts, and BusinessQuery are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects S.A. or its affiliated companies in the United States and/or other countries. All other names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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CONTACT: Business Objects Peter Olson, 408-953-6320 peter.olson@businessobjects.com or Eastwick Communications Erin McCabe, 650-480-4016 erin@eastwick.com

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