Business Objects Announces BusinessObjects Auditor 5.1.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 19, 2002

New Version of Leading Business Intelligence Auditing Tool

Provides Complete Analysis of a BroaderRange of BI Deployments

The continued growth in size and scope of business intelligence (BI) deployments is forcing information technology (IT) managers to balance end user demands for higher performance and availability of the BI system while maintaining system and administration costs. Now more than ever IT needs to monitor, analyze, and optimize their business intelligence deployment. Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ), the world's leading provider of BI solutions, continues to address this need with BusinessObjects(TM) Auditor 5.1, an enhanced version of the company's web-based BI auditing tool.

In February 2001, Business Objects announced BusinessObjects Auditor 1.0, an easy to use web-based BI monitoring tool that gives IT staff such as database and business intelligence administrators invaluable insight into their Business Objects deployment. BusinessObjects Auditor enables customers to monitor the use of their BI system, analyze usage patterns and trends, and optimize their BI solution for better internal use or to generate new revenue opportunities in extranet environments.

Announced today, BusinessObjects Auditor 5.1 builds on the existing version and offers more deployment options and improved user features, giving customers deeper insight into more aspects of their Business Objects deployment. By understanding how users really use the system, the database or BI administrator can tailor the BI solution to end users' evolving needs and can help guarantee the resources that will provide high availability and performance of the BI system.

More deployment options means better coverage of customer deployments

Auditor 5.1 is built on the Business Objects platform and thus leverages all the benefits of the existing BI framework. In addition to providing a connection to Oracle, Auditor 5.1 now provides connections for IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, and Sybase, and can run on UNIX Sun Solaris. This means that BI administrators can monitor more portions of Business Objects BI deployments, specifically those with repositories and audit databases in IBM, Microsoft, and Sybase.

Auditor 5.1 is integrated with BusinessObjects Broadcast Agent, the company's scalable scheduling and publishing solution, meaning that now administrators have better scheduling options for refreshing their indicators and reports. With Auditor 5.1 administrators can schedule a key indicator, such as the number of user logins, to be refreshed overnight during off-peak hours and delivered daily at 9 AM.

In addition, IT users can create more powerful indicators and more complete reports that are based on multiple data sources, for example, create a report that compares user activity to system resources. With Auditor 5.1, the administrator can compare this data within the same report or via linked indicators, more easily getting invaluable information from the BI system.

New interface, key indicators, and reports provide easier access to essential BI system information

BusinessObjects Auditor 5.1 features a new, streamlined interface built with JavaServer Pages (JSP) that provides a simplified workflow. Auditor includes open dashboards and more than 30 frequently asked questions (FAQs) that enable BI administrators to answer the most important questions about the BI deployment to help them to analyze usage patterns. Users can customize these questions or create new ones using more than 80 relevant pre-defined key indicators, for example client internet protocol addresses and login names, the number of successful and failed logins, users' activities, and average session duration. Administrators can monitor user activity such as access rights and patterns, resources such as documents and universes, and system information such as server load and response time.

This analysis enables them to check for anomalies, identify unused resources, and make changes that will improve performance. For example, a BI administrator using Auditor could see that a corporate document thought to be very popular was in fact not being used, and could either make changes to the document to make it more relevant, or archive it from the system. In another example, the administrator would see if a particular end user had not logged into the BI system recently and could follow up to see if he had changed departments and thus needed different access privileges, or left the company and should be deleted from the system. With Auditor, users can see the impact that proposed or planned changes on the database side will have on end users, spot trends using historical data, and analyze their BI system at different levels and angles.

"Business Objects continues to lead the industry in enterprise and extranet deployments, and have worked with these customers to help them get the most benefit their BI investment while extending usage to more users," said Crispin Read, vice president of product marketing at Business Objects. "Being able to monitor the BI systems is critical to enabling customers to tailor the system to meet users' needs and justify IT's investment. Auditor enables customers to understand the day-to-day reality of the users and how that translates into back-end resources. With this knowledge, our customers are better prepared to deploy BI across the enterprise and beyond."

Platform and Availability

BusinessObjects Auditor 5.1 is generally available in English and runs on Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Sun Solaris.

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 BusinessObjects 2000, the industry's leading integrated business intelligence toolset and platform; and BusinessObjects Analytics, an integrated suite of enterprise analytic applications.

Business Objects pioneered the modern BI industry in 1990 by inventing a patented "semantic layer" that insulates users from the complexity of databases. In 1995, the company was first to focus on enterprise-scale BI deployments and today supports customers with more than 20,000 users. The company moved aggressively to the internet in 1997 by pioneering the market for BI extranets, a market that it continues to lead today. In 2000, the company delivered the industry's first interactive mobile BI solution. Today, Business Objects continues to innovate, creating and delivering a unique vision for enterprise analytic applications.

Business Objects has more than 15,000 customers in over 80 countries. The company's stock is publicly traded under the ticker symbols NASDAQ: BOBJ and Euronext Paris (Sicovam 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.

A full-text copy may be downloaded from the web; access http://www.businesswire.com/cnn and search on "Business Objects." Business Objects product inquiries should contact 800/527-0580.