Business Objects Expands Global Services Offerings

Comprehensive Education and Consulting Services Help Customers and Partners Deploy Strategic Business Intelligence Solutions to Achieve Business Innovation

SAN JOSE, Calif. and PARIS - July 31, 2006 - Business Objects (Nasdaq: BOBJ; Euronext Paris ISIN code: FR0004026250 - BOB), the world's leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced newly expanded education and consulting services that enable customers to leverage business intelligence solutions to transform their business.

Business Objects Global Services delivers a complete offering ranging from technical installation services to highly targeted strategic solutions, all designed to help customers and partners drive innovation within their businesses and achieve new levels of competitive differentiation. Business Objects will work closely with system integrator and solution provider partners to create a seamless experience for customers through tightly integrated processes and shared delivery methods.

"Business intelligence has evolved from a standard component of the IT infrastructure to the single most important and strategic solution in any company's arsenal," said Mark Doll, senior vice president of global services at Business Objects. "Business Objects Global Services offers targeted levels of services that match our customers' needs and the maturity of their business intelligence standardization. Our customers benefit from global services that are a combination of our own capabilities used in concert with those of our valued systems integrator and solution provider partners. From education services, product implementations, and platform standardization, to data and performance management strategies, the extended Business Objects Global Services enables customers to use business intelligence to foster their business innovation."

Closing the Gap between Software and Solutions
Business Objects Global Services provides customers and partners with a comprehensive range of service lines, world-class quality based on rigorous training and certifications, and standards and methodologies that can be deployed consistently around the globe. Based on the Business Intelligence Solution Accelerator methodology, a proven approach to implementing strategic business intelligence solutions, these integrated service lines consist of five key practices:

Education Services - provides training from certified experts, with authorized curriculums and course materials, and leverages the proven results of over one million training hours delivered to customers by Business Objects education services last year.
Product Services - uses a proven approach to accelerate the installation, configuration, and use of the full spectrum of Business Objects solutions to deliver immediate results.
Platform Services - delivers a robust, scalable, and cost efficient business intelligence infrastructure to enable more advanced capabilities, and lays the foundation on which higher value BI initiatives are based.
Data Services - provides the services required to source the right data, ensure consistent data quality, and implement a data architecture tailored to the analytical and performance management requirements of the entire organization. Data Services leverages the Business Objects enterprise information management (EIM) solutions to ensure customers can drive performance based on complete, timely, and accurate information.
Decision Services - helps customers to define a complete BI strategy to achieve their performance goals. Decision Services also assists customers with implementing industry specific analytic applications to create highly targeted business intelligence solutions in various industries, including communications, consumer packaged goods (CPG), financial services, government, healthcare, and retail among others.

Customers Reap the Benefits
The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) can attest to the impact of Business Objects Global Services. With billions of dollars in transportation projects, GDOT needed a better way to analyze performance data across a variety of areas, including customer service, operational delivery, financial resources, employee development, and consultant relationships. GDOT selected BusinessObjects™ XI Release 2 and engaged with the Business Objects Global Services team to assist with deploying its solution.

"As we began to scope out how we wanted to deploy business intelligence within our organization, we quickly identified that we would benefit from using outside consultants to help us strategically implement our business intelligence solution," said Douglas Chambers, administrator for Georgia Department of Transportation. "We engaged Business Objects Global Services to help us design the architecture and perform the installation of our Business Objects software. We were very impressed with the amount of knowledge the consultants brought to our services engagement - from helping us to develop our data flows to deciding how to strategically aggregate disparate measures to gain a complete view of our performance. Our Business Objects consultants were able to get the job done on time and on budget, and I'm not sure we could have done it without them."

Rent-A-Center is another customer that has benefited from Business Objects Global Services. The largest rent-to-own operator in the United States, Rent-A-Center wanted an executive dashboard to allow all departments to gain critical insight into purchasing, sales, customer service, and marketing metrics. The Business Objects Global Services team assisted with requirements gathering and did the majority of the design and development work.

"The real world experience of the Business Objects Global Services team, as far as what works well, what doesn't work, and what end-users specifically want to see, was very valuable to us," said Chadd Forgy, business intelligence manager at Rent-A-Center. "A lot of times, business intelligence implementations fail because they are looked at strictly as an IT project. That is one thing the Business Objects consultants really helped us with - keeping in mind our overall goals and objectives, and seeing things from the business perspective. Our dashboard deployment has been a huge success and our executives can now do guided analysis and put a nice spotlight on our key performance indicators."

New Global Services Offerings Support Partner Success
Many Business Objects customers already enjoy strong relationships with the partner community, and Business Objects Global Services is committed to working with partners to deliver a seamless and consistent business experience for customers. Business Objects has created a robust education and certification program for partners, and will leverage the considerable industry knowledge and business process expertise of its partners to deliver targeted solutions that can meet the requirements of any customer. The increased investment in services will open up new opportunities for the Business Objects partner community to grow their business and deliver added value to customers.

"We strongly support Business Objects in its expanded global services initiative," said Brian Jordan, principal at BI Technologies. "This more holistic approach to addressing the business needs of the customer will mean great new opportunities for us to grow our own business. We welcome the prospect of becoming a more strategic partner to Business Objects and to our customers."

For more information on the new Business Objects Global Services, please visit www.businessobjects.com/services.

About Business Objects, an SAP company

Business Objects has been a pioneer in business intelligence (BI) since the dawn of the category. Today, as the world's leading BI software company, Business Objects transforms the way the world works through intelligent information. The company helps illuminate understanding and decision-making at more than 46,000 organizations around the globe. Through a combination of innovative technology, global consulting and education services, and the industry's strongest and most diverse partner network, Business Objects enables companies of all sizes to make transformative business decisions based on intelligent, accurate, and timely information.

Business Objects has dual headquarters in San Jose, Calif., and Paris, France. The company's stock is traded on both the Nasdaq (BOBJ) and Euronext Paris (ISIN: FR0004026250 - BOB) stock exchanges. More information about Business Objects can be found at www.businessobjects.com.

Business Objects and the Business Objects logo, BusinessObjects and Crystal Reports are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects in the United States and/or other countries. All other names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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The Business Objects logo, BusinessObjects, Crystal Reports, Intelligent Question, and Xcelsius are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects in the United States and/or other countries. All other names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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