Business Objects and Narus Provide Business Intelligence for Network Service Providers.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif. & PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 4, 2002

Rapid and Easy Access to Key Operational Data Help

Service Providers Increase Revenue and Lower Costs

Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ), the world's leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, and Narus, the leading provider of convergent OSS mediation software, today announced they have teamed up to bring a new level of intelligence to Communication Service Providers (CSPs). The two companies will work together to provide CSPs with quick access to information to create services that generate higher revenue and lower operational costs. With the combined solution from Business Objects and Narus, service providers such as mobile operators, cable/satellite providers, and network backbone/transport providers can now access and analyze both business and network data that traditionally has been difficult to obtain.

Narus provides CSPs with complete visibility to network data by collecting, filtering, aggregating, and correlating tremendous quantities and types of data in real-time. Traditionally, service providers have used this data for billing purposes, but increasingly they are analyzing customer usage data to increase revenue by offering and creating popular services and lower their costs of operations. Business Objects can be easily integrated with Narus to enable service providers to quickly and easily find answers to their most pressing business problems.

"By combining the disparate information we provide from voice and data networks with the analytic capabilities of Business Objects, service providers are now able to optimally manage their businesses by getting answers to key questions faster and more reliably than ever before," said Ted Hunting, director of marketing, Narus. "In the end, the big benefit for customers is the ability to better understand their businesses, and ultimately make better decisions. That is the value of business intelligence, and now service providers have a way to get it."

The joint solution will benefit a broad range of providers. Mobile operators will be able to understand customer usage patterns to better personalize service packages, identify the most valuable and popular content, and increase customer retention and profitability. Broadband providers will be able to identify extraordinary high bandwidth users, spammers and bandwidth consumption by customers so that tiered pricing plans can be implemented and service agreements can be enforced. Transport providers will be better able to understand the most valuable transport services by type and customer, and determine traffic levels for traffic capacity planning so that service providers can deploy networks where it is most cost-effective. In addition, transport providers will be able to identify quality of service key performance indicators for offering service level agreements.

With Business Objects and Narus, service providers can also answer questions such as:

-- What services are most popular by user demographics and time of day?

-- Where has customer usage dropped, and what customers may be at risk of leaving?

-- What services and service bundles are the most popular and increase usage?

-- What correlations exist between increases in Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), new service introduction, and subscriber demographics?

-- How does service usage change by customer segment when I vary price or introduce a promotion?

-- What segments exist within my customer base based on service usage?

"Narus is a recognized market leader in providing the most granular data and business information for Tier-1 service providers," said Rani Goel, director, worldwide telecommunications marketing for Business Objects. "Narus data, along with Business Objects powerful analysis and dashboards, will enable a new level of intelligence and visibility into the network usage that until now has not been possible."

Information for analysis is typically provided from operational systems (OLTP systems) that are then extracted into a separate database for analysis. However, with today's networks this data is too voluminous to be stored in a database and is locked away as pedabytes of packet data flowing throughout global networks. Narus provides complete visibility to all network data by collecting, filtering, aggregating and correlating tremendous quantities and types of data in real-time. Narus has traditionally used this information for billing purposes, but this information can also be used by Narus customers for analytical purposes to increase revenue and lower costs. With Business Objects analytic applications and dashboards, this information will be collected faster and easier.

Top telecommunications companies in the United States, Europe, and Asia all use Business Objects solutions to increase operational efficiency, improve customer relationships, and recognize the untapped potential of information assets. Business Objects is a leader in providing business intelligence solutions to companies such as AT&T, British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, NTT, SBC Communications, Verizon Communications, Vodafone, and WorldCom.

About Narus

Narus delivers the ultimate performance, convergent OSS mediation solutions for market-leading service providers and systems integrators. The Narus platform generates, mediates, and acts on extremely detailed customer usage intelligence, in real time. Narus' patent-pending core technology supports OSS/BSS convergence, the delivery of new premium services and produces higher profit margins with lower total cost of ownership than other approaches to mediation. These business benefits make Narus the preferred platform for delivery of data, voice, mobile and broadband services. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices throughout North America, Europe and in Japan, Narus is privately held and fully funded.

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 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.