Business Objects Redefines Business Intelligence Search

Business Wire, Nov 6, 2006

Combined Power of Business Intelligence and Search Simplifies and Extends Information Access to a Broader User Community

SAN FRANCISCO -- Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ)(Euronext Paris ISIN code: FR0004026250 - BOB), the world's leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced new solutions and partnerships for business intelligence search. These solutions seamlessly integrate BI and search technologies to help users easily find critical business information across structured and unstructured data. As part of today's announcement, Business Objects is also launching an Open Search Initiative (OSI), a partner network of leading text analytics, enterprise search, and consulting companies.

"Business Objects is driving an important shift in the evolution of business intelligence and information access," said Bernard Liautaud, founder, chairman of the board, and chief strategy officer at Business Objects. "Today's knowledge worker wants information to be ambient, immediate, trustworthy, and based on a complete view of the business. By adding search to our BI platform, we are providing users with a simplified yet sophisticated way to gain access to the wealth of information that exists in structured as well as unstructured data. In the coming year, Business Objects plans to unveil additional innovations and partnerships that will continue to redefine how users and organizations access and apply information to improve performance."

Search Capabilities in BusinessObjects XI Release 2 Productivity Suite Dramatically Increases Information Worker Productivity

The new search capabilities from Business Objects are part of BusinessObjects XI Release 2 Productivity Suite, the latest update to the company's BI platform currently expected to be released in the first half of 2007. Using a key word search, customers can quickly retrieve relevant information from their Business Objects environment, including Crystal reports, Web Intelligence reports, or Dashboard Manager. New capabilities categorize search results, which helps customers further refine and easily browse results. In addition to searching for information within the BI system, Business Objects enables users to query databases and applications directly, creating a new Web Intelligence report to answer their business question.

With the addition of search to BI, Business Objects greatly expands the ways users can benefit from BI. For example, an emergency room doctor could use search within BI to scour a broad set of data sources to find out how many instances of food poisoning have been reported in the past 24 hours, where people are affected, and determine common causes. This real-time access to trustworthy data could help medical professionals spot and prevent wide-spread outbreak of food-related illnesses.

"One of the reasons we standardized on Business Objects is because the company continues to deliver innovative solutions that help us improve the quality of care we deliver to our patients," said Jonathan Rothman, Director of Data Management at Emergency Medical Associates. "Adding search to business intelligence technology will provide us with powerful benefits, like giving our broad community of users an intuitive and simple interface for accessing information quickly and easily. This technology is especially important in healthcare, where doctors, nurses, and administrators need accurate information at their fingertips so they can improve patient care and operational performance in real time."

Business Objects and Enterprise Search Help Customers Find Information from One Portal

By partnering with the leading enterprise search vendors, Business Objects enables customers to search for unstructured and structured data from one familiar portal. Because the portal is personalized, customers can retrieve only data that matches their functional role and security profile.

"IBM and Business Objects share a commitment to helping customers find the information they need to improve their business performance easily and quickly," said Chet Kapoor, vice president development, IBM Content Management and Discovery Services. "The integration of Business Objects and IBM OmniFind Enterprise Edition will remove barriers to accessing information and extend the value of business intelligence by enabling users to search across their enterprise content repositories and their BI ecosystem. Combining access to structured and unstructured data will enable deeper analysis and provide organizations with critical business insights."

Business Objects and Text Analytics Partners Give Deeper Understanding of Unstructured Data

As part of today's announcement, Business Objects is partnering with leading text analytics vendors to help customers identify critical, previously undetectable events and relationships within unstructured data. Text analytics and BI analyze unstructured data and identify concepts, names of people or places, relationships, and opinions within the documents. For example, text analytics could help customers identify product issues in data gleaned from e-mails, field notes, reviews, or blogs. Customers can seamlessly analyze this data and share it across their organization with Business Objects reports or dashboards.