Business Objects Recognized as a Leader in BI Reporting and Analysis by Independent Research Firm

Business Wire, August 24, 2004

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Report Names Business Objects a Leader in All Main Categories, Including Analytic Reporting, Enterprise Reporting, and Business Reporting

Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ)(Euronext Paris ISIN code: FR0004026250 -- BOB), the world's leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced that it has been named as a leader in the August 2004 Forrester Wave(TM) report, titled "Grading BI Reporting and Analysis Solutions." Business Objects was among a select group of companies invited to participate in this report, which rates vendors based on their current product offering, strategy, and overall market presence. The report ranked a total of 13 vendors in the space and noted Business Objects for its strong current product offering and significant market presence.

For this report, Forrester evaluated four scenarios that map to the various reporting and analysis needs of users within a company, including analytic reporting, enterprise reporting, business reporting, and a consolidated reporting platform encompassing the other three categories. Business Objects was ranked as a leader for a consolidated reporting platform used to deliver analytic, enterprise, and business reporting applications to a broad range of users. In addition, Business Objects was also the highest rated Tier One vendor in each of the three major reporting and analysis categories. Tier One vendors are those companies who report annual business intelligence revenue in excess of $400 million.

"Business Objects delivers the best products on the market today, and our innovative strategy, vision, and strong market presence will enable us to continue to extend our leadership," said Chris Caren, vice president of corporate marketing at Business Objects. "There are many types of reporting and analysis users within each company, and being named a leader in all categories of the Forrester BI Wave report is powerful validation that Business Objects provides customers with a solution to help meet their diverse business intelligence needs. With our persistent product innovation, we continue to set the standard in business intelligence reporting and analytics."

Forrester employs a rigorous 14-step process to create a Forrester Wave report. For the Forrester BI Reporting and Analysis Wave, vendors were graded against 46 criteria based on detailed surveys, product demonstrations, customer interviews, and the analyst's existing knowledge of the business intelligence market. Plotting the Forrester Wave is a purely objective and mathematical exercise, as each attribute is scored on a scale of 0 to 5. These attributes in turn are weighted appropriately and rolled up to an overall average. The Forrester Wave contains a great deal of objective data to help companies make good product selection decisions. All products and services are evaluated in three dimensions -- current offerings, strategy, and market presence. Vendor solutions must have strong scores in both the current offering and strategy dimensions to place highly in the Forrester Wave.

About Business Objects

Business Objects is the world's leading business intelligence (BI) software company. Business intelligence enables organizations to track, understand, and manage enterprise performance. The company's solutions leverage the information that is stored in an array of corporate databases, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

Popular uses of BI include enterprise reporting, management dashboards and scorecards, customer intelligence applications, financial reporting, and both customer and partner extranets. These solutions enable companies to gain visibility into their business, acquire and retain profitable customers, reduce costs, optimize the supply chain, increase productivity, and improve financial performance.

In December 2003, Business Objects completed the acquisition of Crystal Decisions, the leader in enterprise reporting. The combined product line includes software for reporting, query and analysis, performance management, analytic applications, and data integration. In addition, Business Objects offers consulting and education services to help customers effectively deploy their business intelligence projects.

Business Objects has more than 26,000 customers in over 80 countries. The company's stock is traded under the ticker symbols NASDAQ: BOBJ and Euronext Paris (ISIN: FR0004026250 -- BOB). 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 http://www.businessobjects.com.

Business Objects and the Business Objects logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects S.A. or its affiliated companies in the United States and/or other countries.