Crystal Reports for Eclipse Now Embedded Within IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform 7.0

Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ) (Euronext Paris ISIN code: FR0004026250 - BOB), the world’s leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced that Crystal Reports® for Eclipse is available as an integrated reporting solution within the new version of IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform 7.0, desktop products. Crystal Reports for Eclipse, a 100 percent Java reporting solution, is part of the embedded reporting solution provided by Business Objects for Rational desktop users. The Crystal Reports for Eclipse integration is validated through the Ready for IBM Rational software offering, which ensures that the integration meets the specifications laid out by IBM for interoperability and user experience. This collaboration between IBM and Business Objects is the latest example of the long-standing commitment between the companies to bring together best-of-breed business intelligence and developer tools. It also reflects the demand among application developers to create and integrate reports into their applications from within the Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software and IBM Software Architect. Eclipse is an open source community whose projects are focused on providing a vendor-neutral open development platform and application frameworks for building software. Eclipse has quickly become one of the most popular integrated development environments amongst Java developers. With Crystal Reports for Eclipse, Business Objects provides organizations with a robust and proven reporting solution, compared to more rudimentary open source reporting tools. Crystal Reports for IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform 7.0 is an expanded version of Crystal Reports for Eclipse that is enhanced with additional components specific to IBM Rational. The IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform 7.0, desktop products, is a comprehensive set of Eclipse-based offerings and best-practices processes that help customers govern the process of software and systems delivery and tighten the relationship between IT and lines of business. Using Crystal Reports for Eclipse within IBM Rational Application Developer, developers can benefit from rapid report creation, management, and delivery when building enterprise applications. Innovative features, such as JavaServer Faces controls and a robust Java reporting engine, help ensure rapid application development. In addition, the Business Objects Business Intelligence Archive Resource (BIAR), which allows rapid import and export of enterprise content between development and run-time environments, ensures rapid deployment, version control, and easier application maintenance. Crystal Reports for IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform 7.0 also provides tight integration to all Business Objects business intelligence solutions. This enables users of the IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform 7.0, desktop products, to connect to and navigate their Business Objects BI environments with drag and drop functionality. A WYSIWIG report preview provides a complete view of the report in the runtime environment, and users can instantly publish to BusinessObjects™ Enterprise through the integrated development environment. "With its latest version of the Rational Software Delivery Platform, IBM has made significant advances to ease and facilitate the creation of service-oriented architectures that can leverage applications like Crystal Reports for Eclipse,” said Gordon Breese, vice president of global alliances at Business Objects. "Developers continue to embrace Crystal Reports as their reporting solution of choice, and Crystal Reports for IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform provides developers with a 100-percent Java-based tool to easily create new and integrate existing Crystal reports directly within their applications. Today’s announcement is further evidence of the strong relationship between Business Objects and IBM, and shows the ongoing commitment to optimize our shared portfolio of business intelligence, infrastructure, and development offerings.” About Business Objects Business Objects is the world’s leading business intelligence (BI) software company, with more than 39,000 customers worldwide, including over 80 percent of the Fortune 500. Business Objects helps organizations of all sizes create a trusted foundation for decision making, gain better insight into their business, and optimize performance. The company’s innovative business intelligence suite, BusinessObjects™ XI, offers the BI industry’s most advanced and complete solution for performance management, planning, reporting, query and analysis, and enterprise information management. BusinessObjects XI includes the award-winning Crystal line of reporting and data visualization software. Business Objects has also built the industry’s strongest and most diverse partner community, and offers consulting and education services to help customers effectively deploy their business intelligence projects. 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. 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.