Award Winning Customers Look to Business Intelligence to Keep Profits Growing; Three Winners in Just 60 Days Honored for their Deployment of Business Objects.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 25, 2001

Owens & Minor, a national medical supplies distributor and Fortune 500 company, is a Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ) success story. So is Zurich North America, and the State of Wisconsin. All three organizations have something in common. They are cutting costs, increasing profits, attracting customers, and winning awards with Business Objects, the world's leading provider of e-business intelligence (e-BI) solutions.

Owens & Minor: DM Review 2001 World Class Solution Winner

Owens & Minor was selected from a field of 38 finalists for the DM Review World Class Solutions Award in the business intelligence category. The award recognizes an initiative based on business benefits derived from the implementation and innovative use of technology to solve a business problem. The company was recognized for its deployment of the WISDOM extranet powered by WebIntelligence(R) from Business Objects, the world's leading provider of e-business intelligence (e-BI), solutions. Owens & Minor credited WISDOM (WebIntelligence Supporting Decisions from O&M), as the reason it secured a $150 million/5 year deal with Baylor Health Care System, a deal estimated to bring in $30 million dollars annually in sales revenue. It has also helped Owens & Minor generate $60 million in new business. WISDOM, an innovative supply chain extranet that allows customers and suppliers to access and analyze information on their buying and selling of products through the company, is powered by WebIntelligence, the query, reporting and analysis solution for the internet from Business Objects. With WISDOM, partners can get a better handle on inventories, costs, and shipping times.

"We are very pleased that DM Review has selected the Business Objects implementation at Owens & Minor, and that we have been recognized as a world class solution in the business intelligence category," said Dave Kellogg, senior vice president of Marketing for Business Objects. "Everyday, Owens & Minor proves that using business intelligence can help manage costs, and bring in new customers, in a time when companies are cutting costs and watching their pennies."

Zurich North America: ComputerWorld Premier 100 IT Leaders Winner

Zurich North America is also staying financially strong in these tough times by using Business Objects to improve customer relationships, save money, and gain a competitive advantage. Zurich, a $6.2 billion insurance and risk management corporation, launched RiskIntelligence, the first customer care extranet in the risk management marketplace. Zurich estimates it has saved up to $400,000 per year with RiskIntelligence. The extranet is powered by WebIntelligence, and has been such a huge success that Zurich has expanded it outside the U.S. to the global marketplace. Recently, Frank Colletti, director of e-Business at Zurich, and the lead manager of the RiskIntelligence project was selected to the Premier 100 IT Leaders list by ComputerWorld Magazine.

State of Wisconsin: ComputerWorld IT List and ADT 2001 Innovator

Award Winner

Joining Colletti on ComputerWorld's Premier 100 It Leader's list is Wayne Thompson, chief, decision support systems for the State of Wisconsin, a Business Objects customer. State of Wisconsin received an honorable mention for Application Development Trends (ADT) Magazine's 2001 Innovator Award for its implementation of the Medicaid Evaluation and Decision Support (MEDS), a data/warehouse support system development by the Department of Health and Family Services and built on BusinessObjects(TM). The system provides faster access and improved information to help manage $2.7 billion in health programs, which helps Wisconsin look at where money is being spent, and track benefits residents receive.

"e-Business intelligence is an important strategic maneuver for the tough times ahead," added Kellogg. "Companies who count themselves among the e-business intelligent will prosper by having a daily dashboard view of how their company is doing. They will stay in control when it is important to watch spending closely."

Read the Book: How to Win with Business Objects

In these tough financial times, it's important to have one guide you can rely on to keep your business on the right track. Bernard Liautaud, president and CEO of Business Objects, has written the one, must-have guide for managers who want to take their company to the next level. Liautaud wrote "e-Business Intelligence: Turning Information Into Knowledge Into Profit," to help business leaders across the globe use e-BI to achieve success in the information economy. Now, more than ever, businesses need to extract the maximum value from their information assets. To order your copy today, go to www.businessobjects.com/book.

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 over 13,100 customers in more than 80 countries. The company's stock is publicly traded under the ticker symbols NASDAQ: BOBJ and Euronext Paris: code Euroclear France 12074, and included in the SBF 120 and IT CAC 50 French stock market indexes. Business Objects can be reached at 408/953-6000 and http://www.businessobjects.com.

Note to Editors: BusinessObjects is a trademark of Business Objects SA. WebIntelligence is a registered trademark of Business Objects SA. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.