Business Objects Announces BusinessObjects Data Integrator 6.0.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 13, 2003

New Version of Visionary Real-Time and Batch Data Integration Product

Fuses ETL and Business Intelligence

Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ), the world's leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced the availability of BusinessObjects(TM) Data Integrator 6.0, the newest version of its real-time and batch data integration tool designed to simplify and accelerate data movement and data sharing across the enterprise. Data Integrator provides organizations with easy and powerful data access, integration, and delivery, cutting the cost and time required to transform data into meaningful information.

Business Objects first launched Data Integrator in August 2002, when it completed the acquisition of Acta Technology, Inc. Data Integrator 6.0 combines enterprise-class extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) with leading business intelligence capabilities, continuing the company's history of innovation and its commitment to providing integrated end-to-end BI technology, from data extraction, to query and reporting, to analytic applications. The new version provides organizations with easy metadata management across the BI platform; a proven next-generation real-time architecture; and enterprise-class performance, administration, and ease of use.

Data Integrator 6.0 enables customers to more easily manage their metadata, thus speeding the time to delivery of the end user reporting solution and reducing maintenance costs. Now with a push of a button, data analysts can create and update Business Objects universes, the patented semantic layer that presents a graphical business representation of underlying structures. For the first time, BI users are insulated from underlying changes in source data by their ETL tool, eliminating the need to re-create scores of reports after the data is reorganized. In addition, Data Integrator includes enhanced native support of relational database and extensible markup language (XML) schemas, and leverages open standards such as common warehouse metamodel (CWM) and XML metadata interchange (XMI).

"The new universe creation capability will significantly speed the time to deployment of the first iteration of the business intelligence solution, and will help us prove the value of BI to end users at a very early stage," said Peter Siegel, principal, Sense Corp. "This is very important, as we will now be able to show reports to users near the beginning of the deployment process, aiding us in refining the data organization and in getting a speedy BI rollout."

Data Integrator's proven next-generation real-time architecture enables the delivery of up-to-the-second information to management dashboards and analytic applications, ensuring users have timely information in the form and in the timeframe required to make effective business decisions. Data Integrator 6.0 detects changes at the transaction or source database level and automatically sends XML alert messages to BusinessObjects Application Foundation, thus providing a complete data connection across the BI platform. In addition, Data Integrator supports complex workflow processing that allows for complicated data structures, and combines support for web services standards such as XML, simple object access protocol (SOAP), and web services description language (WSDL).

Data Integrator 6.0 continues the company's history of delivering enterprise-class, high performing, and easy to use products. It provides users with scalable, parallel performance that delivers automatic workload distribution, load balancing, and structured query language (SQL) task assignment. Data Integrator delivers improvements in centralized administration functions such as managing multiple job servers, and simplifies complex tasks such as creating new data flows and designing transformations.

"Data Integrator 6.0 marks a significant move forward in providing the industry's strongest end-to-end solution for business intelligence," said Chris Caren, vice president, worldwide product marketing for Business Objects. "Business Objects is committed to providing organizations with the means for deploying integrated end-to-end business intelligence, from data extraction to analytic applications, while maintaining independence from operational systems."

Platforms and Availability

Data Integrator 6.0 is currently available on Microsoft Windows and IBM AIX platforms, with support for Sun Solaris and HP-UX expected in 1Q03.

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.

BusinessObjects is a trademark or registered trademarks 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.

Business Objects product inquiries should contact 800/527-0580.