BullSoft to Extend e-Infrastructure, Enterprise and Telecommunications Management Capabilities with Powerful Service Level Reporting Tools.

Business/Technology Editors

BILLERICA, Mass. and SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 7, 2000

BullSoft forges alliance with Business Objects(TM) to provide

advanced service-level reporting capabilities for its OpenMaster(TM)

and AccessMaster(TM) product lines

BullSoft revealed today that it will extend its e-infrastructure, enterprise and telecommunications service management capabilities with a set of powerful new reporting tools that will help IT organizations to manage their service levels better. Incorporating technology from a new partner, Business Objects (NASDAQ:BOBJ), BullSoft plans to integrate e-business intelligence technology from Business Objects into its OpenMaster and AccessMaster product lines in the near future.

Under its agreement with Business Objects, BullSoft, the worldwide software division of Bull, plans to incorporate specific Business Objects components within its product lines in order to enhance BullSoft's information manipulation and dissemination capabilities.

"More and more organizations are deploying service level agreements between IT providers and their clients in order to place a value on the IT resources consumed by their different business processes," said Henry Ancona, president of BullSoft. "To aid the management of service level agreements, the new reporting tools we'll soon offer will gather and deliver high quality metrics on the behavior of services overall as well as on the individual components of those services."

Service Level Management Requires High Quality Information

Successful service level management requires that organizations be able to define the components of a service, agree on the level of service (e.g., availability) and, above all, to be able measure and manage the service.

The various parties to a service level agreement have different information requirement. Service users and lines of business need down-to-earth service-quality metrics, such as system or application availability, while IT administrators need much more detailed information about the behavior of the service's infrastructure (systems, storage, applications and networks).

The advanced data handling enabled by Business Objects, in combination with BullSoft's own powerful collection and integration technologies, helps organizations not only to deliver simple summary information, but also the detailed performance metrics, correlations and trends needed for proactive service level management.

"In order to deliver the very high levels of service that are needed for e-business, companies must have a deep understanding of the business and infrastructure at hand," said Bernard Liautaud, president and CEO of Business Objects. "Our products are renowned for their ability to help people turn raw numbers into meaningful information for both production and ad-hoc purposes. We are delighted that BullSoft has chosen our technology to enhance their powerful reporting and management tools."

"The essence of service management is accurate and timely reporting, delivered to the right people with the right content in the right medium at the right time," said Michel Paulin, vice president of BullSoft's product division. "The use of Business Objects technology, combined with our own advanced capabilities for data collection and integration, makes it much simpler for us to deliver to end-users exactly the information they want and when and how they want it."

Business Objects provides software that helps business people easily access, analyze, and share their data found in sources including corporate databases, enterprise business applications, and the Internet. Business Objects offers e-business intelligence solutions for Intranet, extranet, and e-business environments.

BullSoft's OpenMaster, AccessMaster and OpenMaster for Telecom product lines are highly scalable, integrated and secure e-infrastructure software management solutions designed to solve the management and security problems of large, global organizations.

The application management capabilities of OpenMaster provide solutions for business process management implementations. AccessMaster addresses Internet and enterprise management security issues through secure, policy-based single sign-on. OpenMaster for Telecom helps service providers implement service level management through its advanced fault management capabilities.

BullSoft's three product lines share a common data repository, core services and user interface, so they work together seamlessly to form a united, global security policy, application management and service level management capability. BullSoft's products have the proven scalability and availability to meet the needs of the most demanding service management challenges.

The product lines are designed to provide enterprise-wide management capabilities across a wide range of multi-vendor IT infrastructures, including networks, systems, storage, and applications, including help-desk products, both using BullSoft's own technologies, such as its OpenAgent, which provides a rapid and flexible way of interacting with a target resource, and those of its many technology partners.

About Business Objects

Business Objects is the world's leading provider of e-business intelligence (e-BI) solutions. 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 sold more than 1,680,000 licenses to 9,700 organizations in more than 80 countries. The company's stock is publicly traded under the ticker symbols NASDAQ: BOBJ and Paris Bourse: SICOVAM 12074. Business Objects can be reached at 408-953-6000 and www.businessobjects.com.

About BullSoft

BullSoft, the worldwide software division of Bull, is a leading vendor of secure enterprise and telecommunications management software (OpenMaster and OpenMaster for Telecom), and e-infrastructure and Internet security management software (AccessMaster). Based in Billerica, Mass., BullSoft has research and development, sales, marketing, and service operations in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. More information on BullSoft and its products is available via http://www.bullsoft.com, via email at [e-mail] or by calling toll-free at 800/285-5727.

About Bull

Bull is an international IT group that delivers secure solutions for the enterprise and its customers. Bull's business portfolio is focused in three key domains: enterprise-class servers, IT services, and new technologies (smart cards and software for systems management and Internet security). In 1999, Bull earned revenues of $4.3 billion, with more than 65 percent of that coming from outside France, its country of origin. Bull can be found in 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://www.bull.com.

OpenMaster and AccessMaster are registered trademarks of Bull S.A. in France, the U.S. and other countries. All trademarks, service marks and company names are the property of their respective owners.