Business Objects CEO Bernard Liautaud Named in Top 10 CEO List of Annual Chief Executive Magazine Ranking.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS OBJECTS)--April 23, 2001

Bernard Liautaud, president and chief executive officer of Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ), has been named to Chief Executive Magazine's 2001 "CEO 100" list, and is ranked in the top 10. Business Objects is the world's leading provider of e-business intelligence (e-BI) solutions. The magazine's annual ranking of executives includes high technology industry figures such as Larry Ellison of Oracle (No. 19), Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems (No. 26), and John Chambers of Cisco Systems (No. 37). The magazine ranked Liautaud at number nine on the list.

The annual Chief Executive Magazine ranking is based on criteria including company market capitalization, stock performance, and tenure of the chief executive over the past three years. To be considered for the list, the CEOs must represent companies with at least a $1.71B market cap as of December 1999. The companies stock must perform well consistently over a three-year period (Jan 1998-Dec 2000), and the company must retain the same CEO during that three year period. Business Objects exceeded the key criteria, and Liautaud was ranked in the top 10 of all chief executives. During this timeframe, Business Objects stock price grew at over 990%. Today, the company has more than 13,100 customers worldwide, and is pioneering several growing markets including business-to-business extranets, analytic applications, and wireless business intelligence.

In addition to being CEO of Business Objects, Liautaud is author of the best-selling book, "e-Business Intelligence: Turning Information Into Knowledge Into Profit." This book was published by McGraw-Hill in November 2000, and is already in the hands of more than 40,000 readers worldwide. The book is currently being translated into six additional languages.

"It is an honor to receive this recognition from Chief Executive Magazine," said Bernard Liautaud, president and CEO of Business Objects. "Over the past 10 years, Business Objects has grown from 2 employees to 2,000, with over 13,000 customers in more than 80 countries. This phenomenal growth mirrors the rise of the e-business intelligence market, in which the extension of business intelligence both inside and outside a company now plays a vital role in businesses in every industry. I am proud of what we have accomplished, and look forward to continuing to build our organization in the future."

"Bernard Liautaud has many impressive and unique accomplishments, making him a fascinating addition to this year's Top 10 CEO list," said Donald W. Mitchell, chairman, Mitchell and Company. "These achievements include rapidly establishing Business Objects as a transnational company, delivering continuous technology innovations, and running the organization with strong financial returns -- all marks of a market leader. The greatest skill he exhibits is the ability to lead the company through repeated successful remodelings of its approach to provide more support for stakeholders, now including even the stakeholders of the company's customers. He has mastered this most difficult leadership skill at a younger age than any other CEO we have studied during the ten years this research has been conducted. I look forward to great things from Business Objects in the future."

The article appears in the May 2001 issue of the magazine, and online at www.mitchellandco.com/leadership.html (click on May 2001 article).

About Bernard Liautaud

Liautaud is the chief executive officer of Business Objects. As such, he has direct responsibility over all areas of the company, including operations, finance, product engineering, marketing, and business development. Liautaud co-founded Business Objects in 1990, and took the company public on Nasdaq in September 1994, making it the first French software company listed in the U.S. Today, Business Objects has more than 350M in annual revenue and over 13,100 customers worldwide.

In January 1996 BusinessWeek named Liautaud as one of the "Hot Entrepreneurs of the Year." In the fall of 2000, McGraw-Hill published Liautaud's popular business book, "e-Business Intelligence: Turning Information Info Knowledge Into Profit". The book is an Amazon bestseller and will be available in seven languages worldwide during 2001. Prior to Business Objects, Liautaud served as marketing manager for Oracle France. He also spent time as a deputy scientific attache for the French Embassy in Washington DC. Liautaud has a master's degree in engineering from Ecole Centrale (France) and a master's degree in engineering management from Stanford University.

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 over 13,100 customers in more than 80 countries. The company's stock is publicly traded under the ticker symbols NASDAQ:BOBJ and Euronext Paris: code Euroclear France 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.

A full-text copy of this announcement may be obtained by calling the Company's fax retrieval line at 1-800-414-2114 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.