BusinessObjects First End User Decision Support Tool to Receive Key Microsoft Logo Compatibility Certifications; DSS Industry Leader Receives Microsoft Office Compatibility and Designed for Windows 95 Logo Certification.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 11, 1996--Business Objects (NASDAQ: BOBJY) the world's leading provider of integrated query, reporting, and online analytical processing (OLAP) tools, today announced that BusinessObjects 4.0 has been awarded the "Designed for Microsoft Windows 95" logo and "Microsoft Office Compatible" certification. BusinessObjects 4.0 is the first end-user decision support tool in its category to receive these awards.

BusinessObjects 4.0 was submitted to Microsoft's independent testing facility, VeriTest, in Santa Monica, California, and successfully passed both exacting validation tests. The "Microsoft Office Compatibility" certification verifies that BusinessObjects 4.0 has the "look and feel" of the Office products, including compatible toolbars and pull-down menus, as well as validation of its tight integration with Office tools and file management systems. The Microsoft "Designed for Windows 95" testing includes verification that BusinessObjects 4.0 is a 32-bit architecture, remains stable in a stressed Windows 95 environment, supports OLE 2.0 and other key features, and is compatible with Windows NT. It also validates how well the product performs in terms of administration and network installation.

The BusinessObjects 4.0 product will now display stickers with both the "Designed for Windows 95" and "Microsoft Office Compatible" logos.

"Ease of use is very important to our customers," said Dave Kellogg, vice president of corporate marketing at Business Objects. "That's why this certification of our product is so important -- it is a demanding test process, but it's the only way to prove to customers that a product is truly in sync with Microsoft's direction. The majority of business end users worldwide have experience with or exposure to the Windows operating system and Microsoft Office products. In successfully passing the `Designed for Windows 95' and `Microsoft Office Compatible' testing, it is clear that BusinessObjects 4.0 has the true Microsoft `look and feel'. That means our products are easier for end users to learn and use, and easier for IS to setup and control."

Business Objects sells an integrated family of decision support system (DSS) tools, including:

-- BusinessObjects Reporter, the industry's leading end user query and reporting tool. According to a recent market survey by International Data Corp., BusinessObjects Reporter outsells its nearest competitor by a factor of two to one.

-- BusinessObjects Explorer, an integrated online analytical processing component that includes slice and advanced drill down functionality.

-- BusinessQuery, an add-in for Microsoft Excel that allows Excel users to query against the BusinessObjects semantic layer to import data into Excel

-- Tools for information systems (IS) staff to setup, deploy, and maintain the DSS environment, including BusinessObjects Designer and Supervisor.

About Business Objects

Business Objects (NASDAQ:BOBJY) is the world's leading supplier of integrated query, reporting, and OLAP tools. The company's flagship product, BusinessObjects, provides mainstream business users with access to information stored in corporate databases, data warehouses, and packaged applications. The company pioneered the market for business-intelligent decision support tools in 1990 by introducing the first product to use a "semantic layer" to map complex database schemas to a business representation understandable by non-technical end users.

Business Objects led the overall decision support tools market in 1995 with software license revenues of $48.7M. Business Objects generated over $60 M in revenue in 1995, concluding its fifth consecutive year of more than 100% revenue growth. BusinessObjects is in use at over 3,200 organizations in over 60 countries, and has sold more than 350,000 licenses around the world. Business Objects partners with more than 350 leading third-party vendors including Arbor Software, Carleton, Hewlett-Packard, Informatica, Informix, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Prism, Pyramid, Red Brick, SAP, Silicon Graphics, Sun, Sybase, Tandem, and Texas Instruments. Strategic resellers include Bull, Digital, Fujitsu, NCR, Price Waterhouse, Sequent, SHL, Siemens Nixdorf, Toshiba, and Unisys. More information on Business Objects can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.businessobjects.com. -0-

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.

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