Business Objects Announces New Data Visualization Solution for BusinessObjects XI Release 2

Business Wire, July 11, 2006

SAN JOSE, Calif. & PARIS -- Crystal Xcelsius Viewer Allows Organizations to Create Interactive Presentations with Unparalleled Simplicity, Security, and Data Connectivity

Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ)(Euronext Paris ISIN code: FR0004026250 - BOB), the world's leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced the availability of Crystal Xcelsius(TM) Viewer, a new solution that helps customers visualize their business information. The product integrates Crystal Xcelsius, the award-winning data visualization solution acquired from Infommersion, with BusinessObjects(TM) XI Release 2, the industry's most advanced and complete BI platform. Crystal Xcelsius Viewer enables customers to turn static information into dynamic charts, graphs, and interactive "what-if" scenarios while maintaining live connectivity to their data.

"Most people process information much more quickly when it's presented graphically versus numerically," said Dan Vesset, research director at IDC. "Data visualization is a key to unlocking the power of information to improve information delivery for decision support and performance management. By adding these capabilities to BusinessObjects XI Release 2, Business Objects continues to make BI accessible to more people."

With Crystal Xcelsius Viewer, customers using BusinessObjects XI Release 2 can interact with visual models that clearly present complex business data. The new solution features a simple-to-use interface which allows customers to easily work with data and test out future scenarios. For example, a sales executive can illustrate sales information for different products across various vertical markets and regions in a visually compelling format. Then the executive could demonstrate how decreasing inventory for a particular product line might affect their northeast regional sales. Because these visual models stay connected to data sources, the model can be constantly refreshed to guarantee up-to-date insight.

Crystal Xcelsius Viewer takes advantage of features in the BusinessObjects XI Release 2 platform, including industry-leading security and Web Services. Security capabilities in the platform ensure that only pre-determined users can build or access consoles. Web Services helps maintain live data connectivity between visual models and any corporate data source.

The new data visualization solution enhances the promise of simplicity in BusinessObjects XI Release 2 and extends BI solutions to more users. For example, Crystal Xcelsius Viewer allows authorized users to easily move from high-level visual displays to more detailed reports provided by BusinessObjects Web Intelligence XI, the web-based query and analysis product. Because Crystal Xcelsius Viewer is tightly integrated with BusinessObjects XI Release 2, users can select report criteria from directly within the visualization, which are fed into the platform and automatically generate Web Intelligence reports.

Customers using BusinessObjects XI Release 2 can also combine Crystal Xcelsius Viewer with BusinessObjects Dashboard Manager, a solution which monitors performance across an organization. This allows users to add interactive functionality to dashboards so that they can conduct "what if" scenarios that help predict outcomes of new business initiatives.

"With this latest innovative solution, Business Objects continues to push the boundaries of what is possible with business intelligence," said Donald MacCormick, vice president of product marketing at Business Objects. "By adding advanced data visualization capabilities to BusinessObjects XI Release 2, the industry's most complete and advanced platform just got one step better. The platform continues to break the mold for end-user simplicity and delivering BI to customers when and how they work."

For more information on Crystal Xcelsius Viewer, please visit: www.businessobjects.com/releases/datavisualization

Today Business Objects also announced extended data connectivity of Crystal Xcelsius Workgroup to Microsoft Reporting Services. For more information please visit: www.businessobjects.com/releases/xcelsius_connectivity

About Business Objects

Business Objects is the world's leading business intelligence (BI) software company. With more than 35,000 customers worldwide, including over 80 percent of the Fortune 500, Business Objects helps organizations gain better insight into their business, improve decision making, and optimize enterprise performance. The company's business intelligence platform, BusinessObjects(TM) XI, offers the BI industry's most complete and trusted platform for performance management, planning, reporting, query and analysis, and enterprise information management. BusinessObjects XI includes Crystal Reports(R), the industry standard for enterprise reporting. Business Objects has also built the industry's strongest and most diverse partner community, and the company offers consulting and education services to help customers effectively deploy their business intelligence projects.