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Business Objects Unveils Business Intelligence Web Services

Business Objects, a leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, announced BusinessObjects Web Services SDK, a new product for building BI Web services. BusinessObjects Web Services SDK is a new high-level application programming interface (API) that allows companies to build BI Web services that will enable second-generation business intelligence extranets. These second-generation BI extranets will enhance the reach and integration of today's extranets by linking more companies in the value chain and providing a better integration of the information shared by each company.

Today's businesses are attempting to work together to form a collaborative business, but with the current technology limitations each company in the extended enterprise is operating with only partial information, usually from internal systems or a small number of key partners. This limited visibility into manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors translates into a delay and distortion of information as it moves along the value chain. For instance, an unexpected increase in end-user demand can lead to depleted inventories and panic ordering, as the various participants in the value chain try to adjust to the new demand levels. What might start as 20 percent change in real demand at one end of the value chain could end up being inflated to a virtual 100 percent increase at the other end of the chain. The ultimate result of this lack of visibility is either excess inventory or delayed product deliveries, which translates into increased costs and dissatisfied customers.

Many companies have started solving this visibility issue with BI extranets, using business intelligence outside the organization to share information with customers, suppliers, and partners. BI extranets lead to increased customer satisfaction, new revenue opportunities, and decreased costs.

Now with BI Web services, companies can build second-generation BI extranets that provide extended reach and integration, seamlessly connecting more companies throughout the value chain. These second-generation BI extranets enable greater visibility over the value chain, and help eliminate the problems of delayed deliveries and excess inventory buildup that exist in collaborative business today. By removing these problems, companies can reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction.

"Owens & Minor pioneered the BI extranet market with Business Objects back in 1998 when we first rolled out WISDOM, our healthcare value chain extranet for our customers and suppliers," said Don Stoller, director of information management, Owens & Minor. "Since then, Owens & Minor and our customers and suppliers have enjoyed significant benefits from the extranet, which today has over 150 customers and 10 suppliers. With BusinessObjects Web Services SDK, Business Objects is again leading the market by helping deliver second-generation BI extranets, built on BI Web services. These second-generation BI extranets will allow for greater reach to more participants in our value chain and greater integration with various platforms, including company intranets."

Extending the reach of BI extranets with a BI Web services directory

With BI Web services, companies can use UDDI (Universal Discovery, Description, and Integration) directory services, part of the standard Web services framework. The use of directory services extends the reach of extranets by removing the need for point-to-point connections and a direct business relationship in order to share information.

Today, if 10 companies want to share information using BI extranets, each must make a point-to-point connection with every other company, creating 10 squared, or 100, connections. The use of UDDI directory services lessens the point-to-point connection problem, as companies now have a simple standards-based framework with a central directory for creating connections. A company can register its BI web services (e.g., regarding product catalog information) in a UDDI directory, and others, with the appropriate security profile, can subscribe to those services and access the information. The UDDI directory would be typically a private one, managed by one or more of the major players in the value chain.

In addition, once a company publishes information about an order or a purchase as a BI Web service, anyone in the value chain with the appropriate security profile can subscribe to receive that information. This enables companies to also share information with indirect suppliers, customers, and partners, without having a prior direct business relationship.

"Web services is the future of business intelligence for global enterprise analysis and inter-company collaboration," said Wayne Eckerson, director of education and research at The Data Warehousing Institute. "Business Objects continues to demonstrate leadership in advancing business intelligence capabilities that will become mainstream in the near future."

Extending extranet/extranet and extranet/intranet integration with BI Web services

With BI Web services companies have greater access to information and can leverage this information more effectively.

Web services provide a standards-based distributed application development environment. This means that companies can build an intranet, or internal, application, that includes parts of an extranet, or external, application, without requiring the end users to switch back and forth between the different applications. For example, using BI web services, an appliance manufacturer could compare orders from its SAP system and track shipments from its delivery partner, all from within the corporate portal, without having to log on to separate information sites.

"Penske has benefited from sharing business critical information with customers and partners via a business intelligence extranet for the past two years, and we continuously look for resources that will enable us to have a tighter integration with our partners," said Tom Nather, Senior Systems Analyst, Penske Logistics. "BusinessObjects Web Services SDK would offer our customers the ability to integrate information from the Penske data warehouse extranet with other corporate applications, all from within one interface such as their corporate portal. Whenever we can streamline how our customers receive and interact with our BI information, we improve our customer service which is Penske's number one priority."

BI Web services also enables companies to integrate information from multiple extranet applications. Web services exchanges information as extensible markup language (XML), which makes it easy for a user to integrate information coming from multiple extranets. In the past, users had to log in to each extranet and somehow, often manually, assemble information from each separate extranet in one place. With BI web services, a company will be able to combine information from multiple suppliers' BI extranets and perform local analysis to compare, for example, product pricing and inventory levels.

Using BI Web services, companies can more easily connect with more partners, have a better mechanism for exchanging information, and have a better infrastructure for using that information. All this enables greater visibility over the value chain. This helps eliminate the delay and distortion of information that lead to excess inventory buildup and past-due deliveries, resulting in more satisfied customers and business partners.

"Today, many businesses are realizing the value of delivering business intelligence via the Internet. The Hurwitz Group believes that increasingly, the desire to strengthen the connections between the enterprise and its partners, suppliers, and customers will lead these companies to web services," said Jacqueline Sweeney-Coolidge, director, data warehousing and business intelligence at The Hurwitz Group. "By delivering BusinessObjects Web Services SDK, Business Objects is paving the way to tighter integration, greater efficiency, and more dynamic delivery of business intelligence to the extended value chain."

About Business Objects Web Service SDK

BusinessObjects Web Services SDK is a high-level API that exposes interactive BI functionality such as "list reports", "view report", "refresh report" and "drill on report", as Web services. Web services are standards-based software components that can communicate and work together over the Internet, using the simple object access protocol (SOAP). The web services framework also includes directory services through UDDI, a central directory where businesses can register and subscribe to Web services.

Platforms and Availability

BusinessObjects Web Services SDK has just entered beta and is expected to be generally available on .NET and J2EE in 2Q02.

About Business Objects

Business Objects is a leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions. Business intelligence lets organizations access, analyze, and share information internally with employees and externally with customers, suppliers, and partners. Business intelligence helps organizations improve operational efficiency, build profitable customer relationships, and develop differentiated product offerings.

The company's products include BusinessObjects 2000, the industry's leading integrated business intelligence toolset and platform, and BusinessObjects Analytics, an integrated suite of enterprise analytic applications.

Business Objects pioneered the modern BI industry in 1990 by inventing a patented "semantic layer" that insulates users from the complexity of databases. In 1995, the company was first to focus on enterprise-scale BI deployments and today supports customers with more than 20,000 users. The company moved aggressively to the Internet in 1997 by pioneering the market for BI extranets, a market that it continues to lead today. In 2000, the company delivered the industry's first interactive wireless BI solution. Today, Business Objects continues to innovate, creating and delivering a unique vision for enterprise analytic applications.

Business Objects has more than 14,000 customers in over 80 countries. Business Objects can be reached at 408-953-6000 and www.businessobjects.com.