Business Objects, IBM In Reseller Pact

Business Objects, one of the world's leading providers of e-business intelligence (e-BI) solutions, announced that it has entered into a worldwide reseller agreement with IBM.

Under terms of the agreement, IBM gains rights to sell Business Objects business intelligence software with DB2 Universal Database and the DB2 OLAP Server on all platforms and languages worldwide. This announcement builds upon existing Business Objects reseller agreements with IBM in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Australia.

"Business Objects, when combined with IBM's DB2 Universal Database and DB2 OLAP server, offers a powerful business intelligence solution to our mutual customers," said Jim P. Kelly, vice president of marketing, IBM Data Management Solutions. "This partnership allows our customers to derive business value and extend the reach of business intelligence solutions into new and emerging markets."

"IBM is our most strategic reseller worldwide, and our long-standing relationship has helped us reach us tens of thousands of new users in key markets," said Bernard Liautaud, president and CEO, Business Objects. "We are glad to extend this partnership with IBM to a global basis and work with IBM to deliver industry-leading e-business intelligence to a new range of customers."

Business Objects and IBM have numerous joint customers around the world. A sampling of these customers includes:

• ABN-AMRO (Holland)
• American Honda (United States)
• Banca Commerciale Italiana (Italy)
• Homebase (United Kingdom)
• John Deere Credit (United States)
• Kraft Foods (United States)
• Major League Baseball (United States)
• MeritaNordbanken (Finland)
• State of Arkansas (United States)

Business Objects and IBM

At its international user conference last year, Business Objects awarded IBM its Top Global Partner award. For companies looking to identify, acquire, develop, and retain profitable customers, IBM offers BusinessObjects packaged with IBM Visual Warehouse. This joint solution allows businesses to access, analyze, and share vital customer information.

Business Objects also supports key IBM data management initiatives. Last month, Business Objects announced its support of IBM DB2 Universal Database Version 7. Business Objects also supports IBM Enterprise Information Portal, the company's foundation for a single point of access to both structured and unstructured enterprise information sources.

About DB2

As a foundation for e-business, DB2 Universal Database is the industry's first multimedia, Web-ready relational database management system, strong enough to meet the demands of large corporations and flexible enough to serve medium-sized and small e-businesses. DB2 Universal Database combines integrated power for business intelligence, content management, enterprise information portals and e-business with industry-leading performance and reliability to drive the most demanding industry solutions. DB2 Universal Database together with Internet technology makes information easily accessible, available and secure. There are more than 40 million DB2 users from over 300,000 companies worldwide relying on IBM data management solutions. For more information please visit www.software.ibm.com/data.

About Business Objects

Business Objects is the world's leading provider of e-business intelligence (e-BI) solutions. The company coined the term e-business intelligence in 1998 to describe the intersection of business intelligence and the Internet. Using e-business intelligence, organizations can access, analyze, and share information in intranet, extranet, and e-business environments. In intranets, the company's products provide employees with information to make better business decisions, and are used in environments ranging from workgroups of 20 users to enterprise deployments exceeding 20,000. In the extranet environment, the company is pioneering the use of e-BI in applications that allow organizations to build stronger relationships by linking customers, partners, and suppliers via the Internet. In addition, the company's products can improve the performance of an e-business by providing reporting and analysis against the ever-expanding amount of transaction and profile data that is collected each day throughout the World Wide Web.

Founded in 1990, Business Objects pioneered the modern business intelligence industry by inventing and patenting a "semantic layer" that insulates users from the technical complexity of database systems. Today, the company has sold more than 1,910,000 licenses to over 10,200 organizations in more than 80 countries. Business Objects can be reached at 408-953-6000 and www.businessobjects.com.