Business Objects Receives Prestigious Award for ''Best Company of the Decade'' From Bain & Company.

Business Editors and Technology Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif. & PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 3, 2000

Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ), the world's leading provider of e-business intelligence (e-BI) solutions, announced that it has received the "Trophy of the Decade" award.

This award is given by global consulting firm Bain & Company in France, in partnership with GROUPE HEC, L'Expansion magazine, and Coface Scrl.

The "Trophy of the Decade" is given annually in recognition of the best business of the past ten years. The award is based on the spirit of the enterprise, innovation, and market success. Business Objects was founded in 1990, along with more than 207,000 other companies in France. Ten years later, Business Objects has been selected from this group of companies as "best of the decade."

"When we founded Business Objects in 1990, there were several key elements to our business strategy," said Bernard Liautaud, president and CEO of Business Objects. "First, the development of innovative business intelligence technology; second, the adoption of the proven growth-based business model of Silicon Valley; and third, our decision to go straight to the international market, rather than focusing primarily on our home country. This award is a prestigious recognition of what Business Objects has accomplished over the last ten years. We are very proud to be honored by such a renowned organization as Bain Consulting."

About Bain & Company

Founded 27 years ago, Bain & Company is a world leader in strategy consulting. With a network of 26 offices in nineteen countries, its 1,900 consultants serve the world's largest national and multinational businesses. Its mission is to accompany businesses on the road to success. The French subsidiary has 80 consultants and a total staff of one hundred. In 1995, to celebrate its tenth anniversary, Bain France had the original idea of creating the "Trophy of the Decade" award. Past winners have been: CIPE (1995), UBI SOFT (1996), INFRA (1997), GEMPLUS (1998) and the Optical branch of GRANDVISION (1999).

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.