Business Objects and IBM Deliver Record Performance of WebIntelligence On IBM RS/6000 SP Supercomputer; Tests Demonstrate Support for up to 300,000 Licensed Users.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 6, 2000

Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ), the world's leading provider of e-business intelligence (e-BI) solutions, today announced record-breaking performance statistics of WebIntelligence(R) 2.5 on the IBM RS/6000 SP Supercomputer.

Results of this real-world simulation, performed at the IBM benchmarking center in Montpellier, France, showed that WebIntelligence 2.5 running on an 8-node IBM RS/6000 SP can be deployed for up to 300,000 users depending on usage type. The testing simulated users who log on and view and refresh WebIntelligence reports.

WebIntelligence is the thin-client query, reporting, and analysis tool from Business Objects. Companies running applications on IBM UNIX servers with the award-winning AIX operating system can now leverage WebIntelligence 2.5 to access, analyze, and share information from sources including corporate databases and data warehouses, enterprise business applications, and the internet. Working together, WebIntelligence and IBM offer a scaleable, high-performance solution for e-business intelligence.

"IBM's powerful and scaleable RS/6000 servers are designed to meet a wide variety of customer needs. We are glad to be working with Business Objects, both on the performance testing and real-world solutions, to help our joint customers meet their ever-increasing data access and processing requirements," said Michael Kerr, vice president, IBM Web Servers.

"As more and more customers expand their applications to work across an extranet or upward to thousands of users inside the organization, they need a robust e-business intelligence solution that will scale to match their application requirements," said Dave Kellogg, senior vice president of marketing at Business Objects. "We continue to work with our customers to anticipate the volumes of data that they will analyze and the number of users they need to serve to ensure we continue to provide the most scaleable e-BI solution. IBM is a key part of this strategy, and we are pleased to work together to provide platforms and software that will exceed customers expectations and give them a highly scaleable, top-performing e-BI solution."

Additional Test Details

WebIntelligence 2.5 ran on an IBM large scale RS/6000 SP server with multiple nodes each containing 4 CPU, 4Gb RAM, and 4 SSA disks. Please go to http://www.businessobjects.com/products/enduser_tools/webintelligence /benchmark_ibm/defaults.htm for additional information on the test results.

About WebIntelligence

First launched in 1997, WebIntelligence is the first query, reporting, and online analytical processing (OLAP) tool for web-enabled businesses and the e-business intelligence market. WebIntelligence provides powerful, integrated query and analysis functionality through a web browser and is designed to be easily modified and scale to meet growing deployment needs. WebIntelligence uses a distributed component architecture to provide high performance, maximum scaleability, and flexible UNIX and NT deployments while minimizing IT administration costs. WebIntelligence can be used in a variety of environments - intranet, extranet, net market, or wireless solution - and works with multiple security options enabling users to leverage their existing security features.

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. IBM, RS/6000, SP and AIX are registered trademarks or trademarks of the IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. 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.