Business Objects First Business Intelligence Vendor to Join UDDI

Business Wire, Dec 18, 2001

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 18, 2001

Leveraging Web Services Technologies and Standards to

Build Business Intelligence Web Services

Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ), the world's leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced its membership in the Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) project. Business Objects is the first BI vendor to join UDDI, an industry initiative to create a platform-independent, open framework for describing services, discovering businesses, and integrating business services using the internet.

The UDDI protocol is the building block that will enable businesses to quickly, easily and dynamically find and transact with one another using their preferred applications. UDDI is an important industry initiative helping promote an open standards framework. However, most of the focus of web services to date has been on integrating operational, or transactional, components.

To complete the e-business standards infrastructure, companies must go beyond the operational integration to create a standard framework for integrating analytical, or business intelligence components. To do this, Business Objects is working with UDDI to leverage the web services technology and partnership forum to build BI web services, the company's project for using web services provide companies with intelligence for collaborative business. (Editor's note: Please see related press release, "Business Objects Unveils Business Intelligence Web Services," dated December 18, 2001.)

"Industry collaboration around open standards is a key for e-business to evolve to the next generation," said Tom Glover, General Program Manager, UDDI.org and Web Services Program Manager, IBM. "We welcome Business Objects to the UDDI project and looks forward to working together as we evolve this important web services specification."

"Business Objects is the BI market leader and has long been ahead of the industry in the creation and adoption of new BI technologies and standards. Four years ago, we led the move to web-based business intelligence and pioneered the business intelligence extranet market, helping customers extend BI outside of their company walls to share information with their best customers, partners, and suppliers," said Crispin Read, vice president of product marketing at Business Objects. "We see an opportunity to use emerging web services technology to create next generation BI extranets and are pleased to be part of the UDDI project that will shape the standards on which these future BI extranets will be built."

About UDDI

UDDI is the first truly cross-industry effort driven by major platform and software providers, as well as marketplace operators and e-business leaders. The UDDI project takes advantage of worldwide web consortium (W3C) and internet engineering task force (IETF) standards such as extensible markup language (XML), and HTTP and domain name system (DNS) protocols. Additionally, cross platform programming features are addressed by adopting early versions of the proposed simple object access Protocol (SOAP) known as XML Protocol messaging specifications. More than 220 companies are in the UDDI community.

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. Business intelligence helps organizations improve operational efficiency, build profitable customer relationships, and develop differentiated product offerings.

The company's products include BusinessObjects 2000, the industry's leading integrated business intelligence toolset and platform, and BusinessObjects Analytics, an integrated suite of enterprise analytic applications.

Business Objects pioneered the modern BI industry in 1990 by inventing a patented "semantic layer" that insulates users from the complexity of databases. In 1995, the company was first to focus on enterprise-scale BI deployments and today supports customers with more than 20,000 users. The company moved aggressively to the Internet in 1997 by pioneering the market for BI extranets, a market that it continues to lead today. In 2000, the company delivered the industry's first interactive wireless BI solution. Today, Business Objects continues to innovate, creating and delivering a unique vision for enterprise analytic applications.

Business Objects has more than 14,000 customers in over 80 countries. The company's stock is publicly traded under the ticker symbols Nasdaq:BOBJ and Euronext Paris: code Euroclear France 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

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