Business Objects Announces Newest Version of BUSINESSQUERY for Excel.

Business Editors, High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 26, 2000

Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services

to Provide Advanced OLAP Features for Power Analysts

Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ), the leading provider of e-business intelligence (e-BI) solutions and Gold member of the Microsoft Data Warehousing Alliance, today announced beta availability of BUSINESSQUERY(R) for Excel for Microsoft(R) SQL Server(tm) 2000 Analysis Services.

Business Objects is the only front-end business intelligence vendor to provide a complete query and analysis tool built specifically for Microsoft Excel, the world's most popular spreadsheet reporting tool. BUSINESSQUERY is a Microsoft Excel add-in product that gives Excel users access to information stored in corporate databases, including Microsoft's new online analytical processing (OLAP) server, SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services.

The newest version of BUSINESSQUERY for Excel will enable users to easily access and analyze Microsoft Analysis Services data and takes advantage of many of the new features in Analysis Services, such as:

-- Actions

-- Custom rollup

-- Data mining

-- HTTP connectivity

-- Unbalanced dimensions (parent-child dimensions)

-- Write-back allocations

BUSINESSQUERY for Excel for Analysis Services is built on technology from OLAP@Work, the Canadian-based developer of high-end OLAP reporting tools that Business Objects acquired earlier this year. BUSINESSQUERY for Excel will provide an easy-to-use and powerful query and analysis solution for Microsoft Analysis Services while keeping users in the Excel environment. This will give Analysis Services customers an e-BI solution that easily fits into their existing desktop technology architecture.

Ease of use

BUSINESSQUERY for Excel enables non-technical users to easily answer sophisticated business questions based on Microsoft Analysis Services data. Users can create queries without having to understand the complexity of multidimensional expressions (MDX), the query language used to access Analysis Services. In addition, BUSINESSQUERY for Excel's wizard-driven interface leverages business users' existing knowledge of Microsoft Excel, enabling them to quickly get up to speed creating queries and analyzing data to help them answer their business questions.

Powerful

BUSINESSQUERY for Excel can be used by OLAP "power users" who want to do more sophisticated analysis and distribute reports in Excel across the enterprise. With new functionality built specifically for accessing Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services data, BUSINESSQUERY for Excel exposes advanced Analysis Services features, satisfying the needs of power users and enabling business users to better understand their corporate data. For example, power users can ask complex questions of their data such as, "How many individual male customers with university degrees bought drink products in Q1 in stores with sales greater than $5000?" End users are then able to do further analysis on these types of reports without having to work with complex query languages.

Lowest total cost of ownership

BUSINESSQUERY for Excel leverages customers' existing investment in Microsoft Excel and works with the other query, reporting, and analysis tools from Business Objects, which all also share the same underlying infrastructure. This means that users do not need to learn a completely new application, and information technology (IT) staff are not burdened with additional maintenance requirements.

"Business Objects is a key vendor in the business intelligence space," said Tracy Leonardo, industry manager for business intelligence and data warehousing, Microsoft. "It is essential that business professionals perform analysis in the tools they are most comfortable with. We are delighted that Business Objects is providing Microsoft Excel users with a powerful tool that leverages Excel's ease of use and SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services' robust OLAP functionality."

"Business Objects has a strong history of supporting Microsoft users with the industry's best tools for accessing, analyzing, and sharing their corporate information," said Mark Tice, group vice president of global alliances for Business Objects. "Our acquisition of OLAP@Work earlier this year, along with deep integration with the Microsoft Data Warehousing Framework, has us well-positioned to be the leading provider of advanced OLAP functionality for SQL Server 2000 users."

Availability

BUSINESSQUERY for Excel for Microsoft Analysis Services is currently in beta, with general availability expected in Q1 2001.

About Business Objects

Business Objects is the world's leading provider of e-business intelligence (e-BI) solutions. The company coined the term e-business intelligence in 1998 to describe the intersection of business intelligence and the internet. 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 2,268,000 licenses to over 10,900 organizations in more than 80 countries. The company's stock is publicly traded under the ticker symbols (Nasdaq:BOBJ) and PARIS BOURSE: code SICOVAM 12074, and 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 of Business Objects SA. WEBINTELLIGENCE is a registered trademark of Business Objects SA. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

A full-text copy of this announcement may be obtained by calling the Company's fax retrieval line at 800/414-2114 and selecting option "two." The announcement may also 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.