Business Objects transforms reporting with Crystal Reports 2008

Business Objects (NASDAQ:BOBJ)(Euronext Paris ISIN code: FR0004026250 - BOB), the world`s leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced the launch of Crystal Reports 2008, a powerful, dynamic reporting solution with the power to transform the business user`s experience.

Reports are often the lifeblood of communication between people and their business, their partners, and their customers. Building on a 15-year history of market-leading technology, Crystal Reports 2008 continues the tradition of reporting excellence and innovation for both new and existing customers.

Crystal Reports 2008 delivers actionable data for any organisation with a comprehensive set of new features for business users, report designers and application developers.

"Crystal Reports 2008 brings excitement into reporting," said Juliette Sultan, vice-president of Information Discovery and Delivery at Business Objects. "With this release we are addressing the needs of both the report designers and the consumers of the reports. The reaction from our beta customers and partners has been overwhelmingly positive. People are telling us that the game-changing Crystal Reports 2008 has the power to transform decision-making and improve careers."

"I believe that Crystal Reports 2008 will change the way organisations use reporting," said Peter Callaghan, chief sales officer at Maximizer. "Now that Flash can be embedded within a report, the report itself is transformed into a more sophisticated collaboration tool, and this new interactivity has thousands of innovative potential uses. With Flash integration the only limit for our use of Crystal Reports 2008 is our imagination."

"Crystal Reports 2008 has leapfrogged everything else on the market," said Rob Hershfield, president, United Data Strategies. "My future as a reporting consultant has never been better, because now I can do so much more with the product."

New interactive reporting features will allow customers to save time, act faster, and make better decisions.

Customers can explore information interactively without having to re-query the database or request a new report. Further, they can conduct on-report what-if scenario modelling as well as access multiple views of information in the same report, a first in the reporting marketplace.

The resulting benefits are operational efficiency and fast access to critical data.

Crystal Reports 2008 enables Adobe Flash files authored in Xcelsius, Adobe Flex, and other tools to be tightly integrated into reports. Report designers can create high impact data visualisation for their users and provide them with better online report viewing.

When combined with Adobe Flash files, Crystal Reports 2008 becomes a robust operational reporting solution allowing end users to take action by invoking the next step in an operational process such as ordering inventory, executing a trade, or making a phone call.

Crystal Reports 2008 makes information pervasive in any organisation. With functions like improved XML exporting, customers can render and deploy reports in nearly any industry-standard format. Customers can also deploy reports online, offline, within their applications of choice, or on demand by saving reports directly to crystalreports.com.

With a combination of advancements in report design, Crystal Reports 2008 delivers a flexible and versatile solution.

A new Web services data driver makes it simple to access more data, anywhere. Developers will be able to save valuable time eliminating custom code writing when adding calculated fields to tabular reports. And built-in bar code support and enhanced designer features will contribute to the shorter report design and deployment time.

"Crystal Reports 2008 represents a noteworthy step forward in the evolution of enterprise reporting software," said Dan Vesset, program vice-president, IDC Business Analytics Research. "Business users will see value in the much-improved end-user experience, including new visualisations, on-report interactive parameters, and what-if scenario modelling.

"Report designers can improve their productivity by building a single report that serves the needs of multiple audiences. And, developers will be able to more easily build applications that tie the reports to business processes and enable users to take action directly from the report."

Crystal Reports 2008 is available in a single edition for $495 and is expected to be generally available in November 2007.

To learn more about Crystal Reports 2008, please visit www.businessobjects.com/crystalreports2008.

Safe harbour for forward-looking statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions regarding product release dates and features which will be included. However, these statements are not guarantees of the date of availability, which may be delayed or cancelled, or of the availability of features mentioned which may be changed or removed prior to release. Statement such as "expected" denote a forward-looking statement, and the word "launch" refers to pre-release marketing activities and does not denote general availability. More information about potential factors that could affect Business Objects` business is included in Business Objects` Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 June 2007, which is on file with the SEC and available at the SEC`s website at www.sec.gov. Business Objects is not obligated to update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release.