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Braun Consulting/Business Objects Bring BI To BEA Weblogic

To help organizations enhance the value of their enterprise portals, Braun Consulting, in a partnership with Business Objects, is bringing the power of business intelligence to BEA's WebLogic Portal offering. As part of this initiative, Braun Consulting conceptualized and designed four business intelligence (BI) portlets based on BUSINESSOBJECTS INFOVIEW, a business intelligence portal that collects and consolidates a company's BI information and presents it in a secure, focused, and personalized view to users inside and outside an organization. These modular, production-ready portal components integrate extended analytic functionality within the BEA Portal 4.0 application infrastructure, providing seamless access to structured data and content, as well as the ability to access, analyze, and share this intelligence.

The BI portlets will provide BEA customers a fully web-enabled, customizable and scalable advanced BI reporting solution for e-business. Comprised of web-based technologies that deliver BI content and functionality through integration of Business Objects and BEA WebLogic, these portlet solutions will enable customers to access, analyze and share business intelligence from the BEA portal with colleagues, customers, vendors, and suppliers. Four portlets -- Repository View, Featured Report, Quick Link Sign-On and Alert Center -- are currently available.

"Corporate portals that incorporate business intelligence functionality provide seamless, more timely data access and analysis and ultimately, enhance the decision making performance of today's knowledge worker," said David Reinke, Chief Technology Officer, Braun Consulting. "There is a tremendous market need for the convergence of portal technologies and Web-based reporting solutions. The introduction of these portlets will enable our clients to use leading business intelligence functionality from Business Objects directly within their BEA WebLogic Portal 4.0 environment."

According to Reinke, organizations, particularly in light of today's competitive and economic pressures, have a heightened need for strategic technology solutions that increase business performance and enable seamless communication and collaboration among colleagues, customers and partners. The convergence of strategic business intelligence with corporate knowledge management and portal technology presents organizations an untapped opportunity to facilitate more effective decision-making, analysis and timely business responses to market conditions. Braun Consulting has helped numerous Fortune 1000 companies in the healthcare, financial services, media and telecommunications industries gain competitive advantage by integrating powerful business intelligence into their existing infrastructures, maximizing the value of their portal initiatives.

"Companies are increasingly looking for ways to integrate powerful business intelligence capabilities into their existing infrastructures," said Crispin Read, vice president of product marketing for Business Objects. "Braun Consulting's deep understanding of the critical role of business intelligence in an organization's portal strategy, and strategic approach to helping companies fully leverage the power of portals, made them the natural partner for this initiative. Together, we are offering joint customers a powerful business intelligence solution for the BEA WebLogic framework, enabling them to analyze and report on e-business trends to quickly adapt to market opportunities and improve their competitive advantage."

About Braun Consulting

Braun Consulting Inc is a professional services firm delivering customer-focused business solutions to Fortune 1000 and middle market companies. Braun Consulting combines cutting-edge business intelligence and CRM/eCRM technologies with business strategy to help clients build customer loyalty. By creating the necessary connection between technology and strategy, Braun builds effective business solutions that help clients drive business performance and cultivate long-term relationships with their most valuable customers. Founded in 1993, Chicago-based Braun Consulting has 7 offices throughout the U.S. Braun Consulting maintains strategic alliances with top developers of enterprise applications, including BEA Systems, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Siebel, Business Objects, Documentum, and others. Additional information about Braun Consulting is available at www.braunconsult.com.

About Business Objects

Business Objects is one of the world leaders in providing 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 16,000 customers in over 80 countries. Business Objects can be reached at 408-953-6000 and www.businessobjects.com.

Contact: Braun Consulting, Melissa Murphy, 312-984-7290, e-mail mmurphy@braunconsult.com.