Business Objects Awarded Patent For Industry's First Semantic Layer; Pioneer in Decision Support Recognized for Making Data Easily Accessible to End Users

Business Wire, Sept 11, 1996

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 it was awarded a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for inventing the "semantic layer," and "semantically dynamic objects," two technologies that shield end users from the complexity of corporate databases while providing them with controlled access to the data therein. Business Objects pioneered this technology in 1990 with the introduction of its flagship product, BusinessObjects, the first business-intelligent decision support tool.

The "semantic layer" is a software layer that insulates mainstream, non-technical business end users from the technical complexity of corporate database structures. By mapping technical database structures to everyday business terms, the semantic layer provides a business representation of data that is understandable to business users and enables them to autonomously access corporate data.

"Semantically dynamic objects" refers to a technology that lets users dynamically combine business terms in a virtually unlimited number of ways, and submit those queries to a database while ensuring the correctness of the results obtained.

"We are pleased to have received this formal acknowledgment for having invented these key technologies for the decision support industry," said Bernard Liautaud, president and CEO of Business Objects. "We are very excited about the patent, as it officially validates what we have known all along -- that BusinessObjects truly empowers end users."

Summary of the Invention

Regarding the Business Objects technology, the patent presented by the United States Patent and Trademark Office says, "It is an object of the present invention to provide a new data representation and a new query technique which allows information systems end-users to access (query) database systems such as relational databases without knowing the relational structure or the SQL language. The present invention introduces the notion of semantically dynamic objects."

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 $60M 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.

CONTACT: Business Objects

Tracy Eiler, 408/953-6031

teiler@busobj.com

or

Blanc & Otus

Danielle Dawson, 415/512-0500

ddawson@bando.com