Business Objects Announces BUSINESSOBJECTS 4.0 User Module; Advanced, component-based architecture provides the ultimate integration of query, reporting, and OLAP; Enables mainstream users to surf through all data in corporate databases and data warehouses.

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 25, 1996--Business Objects, a leading provider of enterprise decision support tools, today announced version 4.0 of the BUSINESSOBJECTS User Module, the single, integrated tool that provides mainstream business end users with query,reporting, and advanced online analytical processing (OLAP) capabilities on top of relational, OLAP server, and flat file/personal databases.

A key part of the overall BUSINESSOBJECTS 4.0 announcement (Editors Note: please see related releases dated March 25, 1996), the new User Module provides an industry-unique, component-based architecture; the introduction of two new product components (EXPLORER and DOCUMENT AGENT); and major enhancements to its popular core query and reporting component (REPORTER).

Component-Based Architecture Provides Integration

BUSINESSOBJECTS 4.0 is built around an industry-unique, component-based architecture that integrates all major DSS functions into a single tool. Rather than building the solution as a series of separate products that must be integrated later, BUSINESSOBJECTS 4.0 is built as a single tool, using a single executable and single user interface, that is composed of a series of components that can either be enabled or disabled according to the needs and skills of various types of users.

This makes the product easy to use and easy to learn for end users, eliminates the need for complicated and cumbersome hypercube transformation utilities, and provides a basis for supporting the object-based operating systems of the future.

"Integration between query, reporting, and multidimensional analysis is very important because it maps directly to how end users want to work," said Teresa Wingfield, senior industry analyst at Giga Information Group, a leading information technology and consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. "Users want to be able to perform slice and dice and drill analysis directly on reports, and distribute those reports to others, without having to involve IS every step of the way. BUSINESSOBJECTS 4.0 is a new breed of decision suppor tool that will dramatically affect the marketplace."

EXPLORER Component Delivers Integrated OLAP

The BUSINESSOBJECTS 4.0 EXPLORER component is a new product that delivers OLAP functionality to mainstream business users, including both "slice and dice" and "drill anywhere." EXPLORER enables users to perform on-report analysis, meaning that users can simply toggle a BUSINESSOBJECTS report to "drill mode," and then drill down through dimension hierarchies to get greater detail, drill across hierarchies to look for new dependencies, or drill up to get a summarized view of data. To maximize ease of use, EXPLORER relies on unique "navigation tooltips" to lead the user through the analysis process.

The EXPLORER is an invaluable tool both because it lets users see "the numbers behind the numbers" as well as letting users easily shift their view on database information.

Dynamic Microcube Enables Local OLAP

The enabler for these OLAP functions is an innovative technology known as the dynamic microcube. A microcube is a local multidimensional data structure that acts as a dynamic, persistent cache. Microcubes can integrate data from one or more data sources, and reduce network traffic by keeping a store of data on the user's PC. Microcubes enable mobile computing because users may analyze data in their local microcube regardless of whether they are connected to their corporate network. In addition, microcubes deliver high-performance OLAP by providing a local, desktop-resident hypercube, eliminating the need to generate network traffic on drill down.

Microcubes are dynamic, meaning that they can be either refreshed or reshaped at any time by the user, through a simple user interface. Dynamic refresh ensures that users are always making business decisions based on the latest available data. Dynamic reshape means that users can easily "data surf" through all of the information in an organization's databases and data warehouses without having to master complicated and cumbersome hypercube transformation utilities, or bother IS to run such utilities on their behalf.

"We believe BUSINESSOBJECTS' unique dynamic microcube technology and query technique will offer us the OLAP capabilities we need to drill down from our reports and analyze data -- while running directly against our datawarehouse," Vince Benenati, Simon and Schuster.

DOCUMENT AGENT Component Provides A Third Processing Tier

The BUSINESSOBJECTS 4.0 DOCUMENT AGENT component is a new product that provides server-based report processing, scheduling, and distribution. Using DOCUMENT AGENT, end users can specify that reports be automatically run periodically at certain times, and that the resulting report (and its microcube) be automatically distributed to a predefined distribution list through the BUSINESSOBJECTS document exchange facility or through a standard mail interface. Acting in this capacity, the DOCUMENT AGENT provides an additional tier where reports can be processed (and microcubes generated) on either the backend database server or a middle-tier application server. This three-tier architecture enables users to offload complex reports to dedicated, powerful servers. In addition, it reduces network traffic between the database server and the client application. Finally, it provides the performance benefits of precomputed hypercubes, which can then be used by end users directly or dynamically reshaped and refreshed as users see fit.

REPORTER Component Delivers Industry-Leading Query and Reporting

BUSINESSOBJECTS 4.0 brings an extended set of enhancements to the industry's most popular business-intelligent query and reporting tool, the BUSINESSOBJECTS REPORTER. These enhancements include:

-- New, fully upward compatible, section-and-block reporting metaphor that enables new types of powerful reports, such as master/multidetail reports, and that provides a metaphor uniquely suited to multidimensional reporting and analysis.

-- Enhancements to the industry's most advanced query generator, which lets users answer even their most complex inquiries. The new query generator now supports a wide range of schemas, including packaged application schemas, normalized product schemas, denormalized star/snowflake schemas, and even complex denormalized multistar schemas. The query generator now can generate multiSQL queries -- those queries that require multiple SQL statements to be properly expressed. And it also now understands "aggregate awareness," and can generate queries that utilize database-resident precalcuated aggregates to improve performance by up to a factor of 100 times.

-- A refined user interface that enhances ease of use, relying on technologies such as wizards, drag and drop, WYSIWYG, and planned compatibility and logo certification with the Microsoft Office interface.

-- A new scripting language, ReportScript, that enables the development of push-button executive information system (EIS) interfaces to meet the needs of the EIS user.

-- The ability to meet a broad spectrum of user needs. Thanks to the scripting language, configurability provided by the BUSINESSOBJECTS SUPERVISOR module, and the Microsoft Excel add-in BUSINESSQUERY module, BUSINESSOBJECTS is uniquely positioned to meet the needs of a broad spectrum of DSS users -- from the spreadsheet user to the push-button EIS user to the query and reporting user to the full query, reporting, and analysis user.

-- Full support for Microsoft's OLE2, where BUSINESSOBJECTS can act as both an OLE2 client and OLE2 server, as well as the use of OLE component file format for the storage of BUSINESSOBJECTS documents.

"Our customers are telling us that BUSINESSOBJECTS 4.0 is the first enterprise decision support product that will meet the needs of mainstream users," said David Kellogg, vice president of worldwide product marketing for Business Objects. "They will now be able to easily ask `why' questions, as well as find out `what' is happening in their corporate databases and data warehouses. BUSINESSOBJECTS 4.0 offers users unprecedented functionality in an integrated, open, deployable, and easy to use way."

Pricing and Availability

Quantity-one pricing for the REPORTER component is $595, for the EXPLORER component is $695, and for the DOCUMENT AGENT component is $150. Volume discounts are available. BUSINESSOBJECTS 4.0 will be in production at the end of March 1996.

About Business Objects

Business Objects (NASDAQ: BOBJY) is a leading provider of enterprise decision support tools that delivers access to data stored in corporate databases, data warehouses, and packaged applications. The company pioneered the market for business-intelligent decision support tools in 1990 with the introduction of its flagship product, BUSINESSOBJECTS, the first decision support tool to use a "semantic layer" to map complex database schemas to a business representation understandable by mainstream business users.

Business Objects generated over $60M in revenue in 1995, concluding its fifth consecutive year of more than 100% revenue growth. BUSINESSOBJECTS has been licensed in more than 40 countries to over 2,600 customer sites and 130,000 users worldwide. Business Objects partners with more than 350 leading third-party vendors including Arbor Software, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Informix, Microsoft, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Prism, Red Brick, Sun, and Sybase. Strategic resellers include Bull, Digital, Fujitsu, NCR, Price Waterhouse, Sequent, SHL, Siemens Nixdorf, Toshiba, and Unisys. More information on Business Objects can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.BUSINESSOBJECTS.com. -0-

Note to Editors: BUSINESSOBJECTS is a trademark of Business Objects S.A. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

-- BUSINESSOBJECTS Product Inquiries can be sent to Business Objects at 800/527-0580 or on the World Wide Web at http://www.BUSINESSOBJECTS.com.

-- Please see additional press releases "Business Objects Announces BUSINESSOBJECTS 4.0" and "Business Objects Announces BUSINESSOBJECTS 4.0 SUPERVISOR and DESIGNER Modules"

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