BT Moves into Business Intelligence Solutions and Selects Business Objects as Key Partner.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 10, 2002

Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ), the world's leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, and BT, one of the world's leading providers of telecommunications services, today announced the creation of a strategic alliance to deliver customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. With this alliance, companies will benefit from improved information access and analysis, which will enable them to understand and better manage all aspects of their customer-facing activities.

This partnership marks BT's entry into the rapidly growing business intelligence market. The combination of BT's CRM expertise and BusinessObjects(TM) Customer Intelligence, a packaged analytic application that enables businesses to gain deeper insight into customer behavior to increase customer lifetime value and loyalty, will enable the delivery of end-to-end CRM solutions for businesses worldwide.

Working with BT and Business Objects, organizations can identify their best customers, understand their behavior, and anticipate their needs at any particular moment. This enables businesses to create the best possible customer experience at every point of contact, which will help reduce customer churn and increase customer satisfaction.

"Businesses demand highly sophisticated customer intelligence capabilities, and through this new partnership, BT is now able to deliver this requirement to our customers who are looking to make the most out of their CRM investment," said Craig Anderson, general manager of BT eCRM Solutions. "We can provide customers with any aspect of a CRM solution from basic contact center services to enterprise-wide customer intelligence. We selected Business Objects as a partner because they are acknowledged by our customers and industry peers as providing best-of-breed solutions."

"BT's decision to partner with Business Objects is testament to our leadership in providing innovative business intelligence solutions that meet complex business needs and deliver fast return on investment," said Bernard Liautaud, chairman and CEO of Business Objects. "BT's wealth of experience in CRM, combined with BusinessObjects Customer Intelligence, will enable BT's customers to understand and improve their customer relationships better than ever before."

BusinessObjects Customer Intelligence is composed of a series of pre-packaged analytic software modules:

-- BusinessObjects Contact Center Analytics -- helping businesses manage their contact centers to maintain service levels while controlling costs

-- BusinessObjects Customer Analytics -- helping businesses understand what drives customer behavior and loyalty

-- BusinessObjects Sales Analytics -- helping businesses understand and improve the performance of their sales force, revenues and pipeline

-- BusinessObjects Campaign Analytics -- enabling businesses to analyze and maximize the performance of marketing campaigns

BT will also work with Business Objects to tailor its customer intelligence analytics specifically for the requirement of BT's CRM customers. BT's market knowledge combined with the flexibility of packaged analytics from Business Objects will enable fast industry specific customization. Solutions will initially be targeted at the finance and insurance markets, as well as the government sector, through a series of joint marketing and sales initiatives.

About BT

BT is one of the world's leading providers of telecommunications services and one of the largest private sector companies in Europe. Its principal activities include local, long distance and international telecommunications services, Internet and broadband services and IT solutions. In the UK, BT serves more than 28 million exchange lines as well as providing network services to other licensed operators.

BT Group consists of:

-- BT Retail, the UK's largest communications service provider 

and the prime channel to market for BT's other businesses;

-- BT Wholesale, the provider of network services and solutions

to communications companies, network operators and service

providers;

-- BT Ignite, BT's business services and solutions business,

serving customers worldwide; and

-- BT Openworld, a mass-market narrow and broadband internet 

business.

Further businesses make up BT Group, including BTexact Technologies, the internationally renowned advanced research and technology business. For more information, visit www.btplc.com.

About Business Objects

Business Objects is the world's 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. It helps organizations improve operational efficiency, build profitable customer relationships, and develop differentiated product offerings.

The company's products include data integration tools, the industry's leading integrated business intelligence platform, and a suite of enterprise analytic applications. Business Objects is the first to offer a complete BI solution that is composed of best-of-breed components, giving organizations the means to deploy end-to-end BI to the enterprise, from data extraction to analytic applications.

Business Objects has more than 16,500 customers in over 80 countries. The company's stock is publicly traded under the ticker symbols NASDAQ: BOBJ and Euronext Paris (Euroclear code 12074). It is included in the SBF 120 and IT CAC 50 French stock market indexes. Business Objects can be reached at 408-953-6000 and www.businessobjects.com.

Note to Editors: BusinessObjects is a trademark of Business Objects S.A. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated