Business Objects and answerthink Form Strategic E-Business Intelligence Alliance; Partnership Enables Global 2000 Companies to Make Decisions Faster.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 3, 2001

Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ), the world's leading provider of e-business intelligence (e-BI) solutions, and answerthink, inc. (Nasdaq:ANSR), a leading provider of technology-based business solutions, today announced an alliance to provide powerful business intelligence solutions that help empower companies to make critical business decisions faster.

As part of the partnership, answerthink will become a member of the Business Objects global alliance program and will train a majority of its business intelligence consultants on Business Objects software this year.

"answerthink has adopted Business Objects suite of products as a part of our core technology because it provides companies with the ability to access, analyze, and share data within its organization and with its customers, and suppliers," said Jeff Falvey, director in answerthink's Business Intelligence group. "The product line provides the scalability, reliability, and functionality needed in today's fast paced and complex business environment where the timeliness and relevance of information is more important than ever."

"Our alliance with answerthink underscores Business Objects ongoing desire to partner with leading technology solutions integrators to deliver e-BI solutions in intranet, extranet, and e-business environments worldwide," said Mark Tice, group vice president of Global Alliances for Business Objects. "answerthink is a top-notch, full services consultancy with an impressive track record of success."

About answerthink, inc.

answerthink, inc. (www.answerthink.com) is a leading provider of technology-based business solutions. The company brings together multi-disciplinary expertise, best practices benchmarking and research, enterprise transformation, interactive marketing and design, business applications, and technology integration to serve the needs of Global 2000 clients. answerthink's solutions span all functional areas of a company including supply chain, sales and marketing, customer service, finance, and human resources, as well as a line of business specialty markets such as retail, telecommunications, and financial services. Founded in 1997, answerthink has more than 1,800 associates and offices in 17 cities throughout the United States and in Europe.

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 11,500 customers in more than 80 countries. The company's stock is publicly traded under the ticker symbols Nasdaq:BOBJ and Euronext Paris: 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.

Certain statements in this press release are "forward looking Statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward looking statements. Factors that impact such forward looking statements include the ability of the Company to attract additional business, changes in expectations regarding the information technology industry, the ability of the Company to attract skilled employees, possible changes in collections of accounts receivable, risks of competition, price and margin trends, changes in general economic conditions and interest rates as well as other risks detailed in the Company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Note to Editors: BusinessObjects is a trademark of Business Objects SA. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.