BUSINESS OBJECTS ANNOUNCES WEBINTELLIGENCE 2.5

Business Objects, a leading provider of integrated enterprise decision support tools, has announced WebIntelligence 2.5, a new version of the company's integrated query, reporting, and online analytical processing (OLAP) solution for the web.

With WebIntelligence 2.5, the company has further improved the integration between WebIntelligence (thin-client) and BusinessObjects (full-client) by creating a business intelligence portal, named InfoView, that works with both tools. WebIntelligence 2.5 will also support leading UNIX servers from Sun, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM. The new version brings with it programmability features that include a new WebIntelligence application programming interface (API) and a customizable user interface.

Business Objects customers worldwide are using WebIntelligence as their platform for e-business intelligence(tm) applications that tie together companies, their suppliers, vendors, and customers via private extranets. The company has Owens & Minor, Penske Logistics, T. Rowe Price, and Zurich-American Insurance among its list of U.S. customers deploying extranet-based decision support services (DSS) applications. European WebIntelligence customers are also pursuing extranet deployments for applications in areas including finance, manufacturing, and telecommunications.

"Business to business deployments of reporting and analytical applications in extranet environments will be one of the fastest growing segments of business intelligence thorough 2002/2003," said David Folger, program director, Workgroup Computing Strategies, META Group. "With WebIntelligence, we expect Business Objects to be one of the key players in this emerging market."

The new WebIntelligence 2.5 business intelligence portal, UNIX server support, and programmability features will offer significant enhancements in the areas of enterprise reporting, enterprise deployment, and enhanced customization.

InfoView, one point of entry for business intelligence users

WebIntelligence 2.5 furthers the company's leadership position in the decision support market by providing InfoView, which gives companies a business intelligence portal for both WebIntelligence and BusinessObjects users. InfoView's new features for enterprise reporting include:

• Enhanced report catalog. InfoView provides a searchable report catalog that organizes reports by categories for better navigation. InfoView's common report catalog for both thin- and full-client users offers enhanced ease-of-use for mixed-client corporate environments.
• Report scheduling. From inside InfoView, WebIntelligence 2.5 users can now schedule report updates. Using the company's integrated report and broadcast server technology, WebIntelligence reports can be refreshed in the background, and users can receive automatic updates to these reports based on business conditions or events.
• New web report viewers. InfoView features new web report viewers that are optimized for browser environments, offering native quality viewing and printing over the web for both WebIntelligence and BusinessObjects reports. These viewers also provide on-report navigation and page scrolling. The viewers require no client software installation, and use either ActiveX, "light" plug-in, or HTML technology.

Support for leading UNIX servers

With WebIntelligence 2.5, Business Objects further extends its enterprise deployment leadership by supporting the most popular UNIX server platforms. WebIntelligence 2.5 will offer immediate support for Sun Solaris, with support for IBM AIX and HP HP-UX scheduled for the second half of 1999.

WebIntelligence 2.5 UNIX server support builds on the strength of the existing WebIntelligence distributed component architecture that provides maximum scaleability and failover capability. WebIntelligence also supports mixed NT/UNIX clusters for easier real-world implementations.

Along with UNIX support, WebIntelligence 2.5 features other new features for enterprise deployment, including:

• New web query panel. The WebIntelligence 2.5 web query panel uses standard HTML, with Java, ActiveX, or Java "light" technology selected based on user preference and system configuration. Both the ActiveX and Java light features are new with WebIntelligence 2.5. The web panel automatically tunes itself to deliver the best performance on the most popular client platforms, with no need for either application software or database middleware on the client.
• New automatic configuration setting. This setting is a one-click interface that automatically checks all relevant aspects of the user's browser configuration, and guides the user through any needed changes. This setting helps with the fast, accurate setup of WebIntelligence 2.5 and provides optimized browser performance.

Programming power and customization

WebIntelligence 2.5 allows customers to customize their applications depending on the needs, skills, and technical environment of their end users. The product's functionality for client programmability and customization includes:

• Customizable user interface. WebIntelligence 2.5 lets customers customize their user interface (for example, adding, removing, or modifying toolbars and menu items). Customers can also build custom e-business intelligence web applications, or provide one-click reporting embedded in other applications such as email or Microsoft Word documents.
• Server extensibility. Companies can extend the power of WebIntelligence 2.5 by adding new server components as extensions to the WebIntelligence server. An example would be integrating a geographic display system to drive report criteria by a clickable map interface. Viewing an online map of the U.S., a marketing worker could click on the state of New York to see how items are selling in that state, and then compare figures with those from California by clicking on that state.
• Interoperability via new WebIntelligence API. WebIntelligence 2.5 offers a new application programming interface (API) consisting of a documented object model and Microsoft Active Server Pages. This lets other applications call WebIntelligence functions, such as report catalog, web report viewers, report prompts, user authentification, or report creation. With the new API, developers can more easily embed WebIntelligence 2.5 functionality within other enterprise applications.

Beta customer feedback

Zurich-American Insurance is a WebIntelligence 2.5 beta customer and an example of an innovative company that has deployed an extranet-based business intelligence application. Zurich-American, which started as an early customer of the first WebIntelligence release, launched a customer service extranet last year. Named RiskIntelligence, the initial extranet deployment gives 100 customers with 400 risk managers immediate access to their critical loss data and insurance information.

"With RiskIntelligence our customers can analyze their risk patterns and make the changes needed to keep their workplace safe and their premiums low, " said Frank Colletti, assistant vice president at Zurich-American Insurance. "As the industry's only truly thin-client solution for risk management, RiskIntelligence has been of great value to our customers. Plus it's been a great selling point for our services. Paper-based reports that used to take weeks to receive and review have been replaced by online reports that are updated nightly."

Colletti added, "The WebIntelligence 2.5 features such as InfoView and improved programmability will allow us to make RiskIntelligence even more valuable to our company and our customers. Plus we're pleased that the product supports UNIX servers."

To learn more about RiskIntelligence and view sample WebIntelligence reports, visit the Zurich-American website at www.zurichamerican.com and click on "customer services."

Along with Zurich-American Insurance, Business Objects has numerous other beta customers of WebIntelligence 2.5. Additional beta sites include:

• Allegiance Healthcare
• American Family Insurance
• Conoco
• Duke Energy
• Eli Lilly
• Lucent Technologies
• Mellon Bank
• Nortel Networks
• Owens & Minor
• Penske Logistics
• Telecom Italia SpA

"WebIntelligence is a great product that is delivering value to thousands of users. The product is fueling the growth of Business Objects, and I'm very proud of this new release," said Bernard Liautaud, president and CEO of Business Objects. "Our WebIntelligence customers every day are demonstrating the power and profits that come from sharing and analyzing information via business-to-business extranet applications. WebIntelligence 2.5 will further help customers open up their data warehouses and extend the reach of their web-based systems beyond the enterprise to include partners and suppliers."

Architecture

The WebIntelligence 2.5 distributed component architecture is built on common object request broker (CORBA) compliant technology, thus ensuring system scaleability, load balancing, and automatic failover. WebIntelligence 2.5, with its thin-client framework, also provides full firewall support for business-to-business DSS applications.

With this architecture and interface, WebIntelligence eliminates the need for client-side installation and maintenance of both application software and database middleware, providing organizations with a cost-effective way to broadly deploy business intelligence capabilities.

WebIntelligence 2.5 offers three integrated modules to meet a variety of user needs ranging from simple report viewing to users who want to create their own queries and perform analysis. The WebIntelligence 2.5 base module is InfoView, which provides users with the ability to read, refresh, and print reports over the web. Companies can add query functionality with the WebIntelligence Reporter module. Users who need maximum analysis functionality can also add WebIntelligence Explorer (for OLAP).

Availability

WebIntelligence 2.5 availability on Microsoft Windows NT and Sun Solaris UNIX is expected by end of 2Q99. Availability for HP-UX and IBM AIX is expected in 2H99.

About Business Objects

Business Objects is the world's leading provider of integrated enterprise decision support tools. Business Objects products provide non-technical business users with access to information stored in data warehouses, data marts, and packaged business applications. Business Objects provides a complete suite of decision support tools including query, reporting, online analytical processing, data mining, and DSS administration for both client/server and internet environments. Business Objects has sold more than 1,180,000 licenses to over 8,100 organizations in more than 60 countries worldwide.

Business Objects may be reached by phone at 408/953-6000 or on the worldwide web at http://www.businessobjects.com. The Company's stock is publicly traded under the ticker symbol BOBJ.