SAP Business Objects (a.k.a. BO, BOBJ) is a French enterprise software company, specializing in business intelligence (BI).

Since 2007, it has been a part of SA P AG. The company claimed more than 46,000 customers worldwide in its final earn ings release.[1] Its flagship product is BusinessObjects XI, with components tha t provide performance management, planning, reporting, query and analysis and en terprise information management. Business Objects also offers consulting and edu cation services to help customers deploy its business intelligence projects. Oth er Business Objects toolsets enable universes, and ready-written reports, to be stored centrally and made selectively available to communities of password-prote cted usernames. Contents [hide] 1 History 1.1 Legal 1.2 Timeline 2 Products 3 References 4 External links [edit] HistoryBernard Liautaud co-founded Business Objects in 1990 together with Denis Payre and was chief executive officer until September 2005, then became c hairman and chief strategy officer until January 2008. In 1990, the first custom er, Coface, was signed. The company went public on NASDAQ in September 1994, mak ing it the first European software company listed in the United States.[citation needed] In 2002, the company made Time Magazine Europe's Digital Top 25 of 2002 and were BusinessWeek Europe Stars of Europe. On 7 October 2007, SAP AG announced[2] that it would acquire Business Objects fo r $6.8B. As of 22 January 2008, the corporation is fully operated by SAP; this i s seen as part of a growing consolidation trend in the business software industr y, with Oracle acquiring Hyperion in 2007 and IBM acquiring Cognos in 2008. Business Objects had two headquarters in San Jose, California, and Paris, France , but their biggest office was in Vancouver, BC. The company's stock was traded on both the Nasdaq and Euronext Paris (BOB) stock exchanges. [edit] LegalOn April 2, 2007 a lawsuit from Informatica (inherited by BOBJ from the purchase of Acta Technologies in 2002) resulted in an award of $25 million i n damages to Informatica for patent infringement. The lawsuit related to embedde d data flows with one input and one output. Informatica asserted that the ActaWo rks product (now sold by BOBJ as part of Data Integrator), infringed several Inf ormatica patents including U.S. Patent Nos. 6,014,670 and 6,339,775, both titled "Apparatus and Method for Performing Data Transformations in Data Warehousing." BOBJ subsequently released a new version of Data Integrator (11.7.2) removing t he infringing product capability.[3][4] [edit] Timeline1990: BusinessObjects launches Skipper SQL 2.0.x. 1994: Launches BusinessObjects v3.0 and goes public on the NASDAQ in September t he first French company listed in the United States.[5] 1996: Enters the OLAP market and launches BusinessObjects v4.0. Bernard Liautaud named one of Business Week's "Hottest Entrepreneurs of the Year." 1997: Introduces WebI thin client, which enables shared information across an ex tranet.[6] 1999: General Electric (GE) begins working with the company.[citation needed] Bu siness Objects goes public in France on the Premier March. Acquires Next Action T echnologies. 2000: Acquires OLAP@Work for approximately $15 million[7] and announces MDX Conn ect from this acquisition.[8] 2001: SAP signs an OEM and reseller agreement to bundle Crystal Reports. Acquire

s Blue Edge Software. 2001: Signs up its single largest global software licensing transaction with Thr ee formerly known as Hutchison 3G. 2002: Acquires Acta Technologies.[9] Bernard Liautaud named to Business Week's " Stars of Europe," and the company is named one of the "100 Fastest Growing Tech Companies" by Business 2.0.[10] Informatica files a lawsuit against Acta, claimi ng patent rights infringement.[6] 2003: Acquires Crystal Decisions for $820 million.[11] Business Objects releases Dashboard Manager, BusinessObjects Enterprise 6, and BusinessObjects Performanc e Manager. 2004: Debuts new combined company with the slogan, "Our Future is Clear, Crystal Clear." Launches Crystal v10 and BusinessObjects v6.5. 2005: Launches BusinessObjects XI. Acquires SRC Software, Infommersion, and Medi ence. Launches BusinessObjects Enterprise XI Release 2. 2006: Business Objects acquires Firstlogic, Inc and Nsite Software, Inc.[12][13] 2006: Acquires ALG Software (formerly Armstrong Laing Group). Launches Crystal X celsius, which allows users to transform Microsoft Excel spreadsheet data into i nteractive Flash media files. 2007: Continuing its string of acquisitions, Business Objects acquires Cartesis[ 14] and Inxight. 2007: In October, SAP AG's Chief Executive Henning Kagermann announced a $6.8 bi llion deal to acquire Business Objects. 2008: In January, SAP absorbs all of Business Objects' offices, and renames the entity "Business Objects, an SAP company". Following the acquisition of Business Objects by SAP, the founder and CEO of Business Objects, Bernard Liautaud, anno unces his resignation.[15] 2009: Business Objects becomes a division of SAP instead of a separate company. The portfolio brand "SAP BusinessObjects" was created. All former BO employees n ow officially work for SAP. [edit] ProductsSAP BusinessObjects 4.0 is now GA for most countries: Common services for deployment and management of BI tools Reporting Query and analysis tools for self-service reporting, including DeskI (Full Clien t, which is being retired) and Web Intelligence (for ad-hoc reporting). Enterprise Reporting (Crystal Reports) access, format, and deliver information t o large populations of users. Data Visualization (Dashboard Design/Xcelsius) supports creation of flash dashbo ards and dynamic charts and graphics with data from BO XI, databases, or Excel s preadsheets. Universe Designer: An administrator tool used to construct Universes or abstract ed end-user views of the database; allows pre-defining table joins, object descr iptions, and measure object behavior during aggregation. This tool is succeeded by "Information Design Tool" (IDT) in SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 Enterprise Information Management (EIM) integrates and improves data to create a trusted foundation for business decisions. Creates a basis for querying and ana lysis through ETL or EII. Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) helps users align with strategy by track ing and analyzing key business metrics and goals via management dashboards, scor ecards, analytics, and alerting. InfoView web portal, which is succeeded by "BI Workspaces" in SAP BusinessObject s 4.0 On-demand BI software (Business Intelligence OnDemand), hosted on the web. [edit] References1.^ http://www.sap.com/about/newsroom/businessobjects/20080129_ 006682.epx 2.^ "SAP to buy Business Objects for $6.8B". The Associated Press. Archived from the original on 2007-10-12. http://web.archive.org/web/20071012175940/http://bu sinessweek.com/ap_working/financialnews/D8S4K2580.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+ind ex_top+story. Retrieved 2007-10-07. 3.^ "Business Objects Issues Statement on Informatica Lawsuit". Business Objects

. Archived from the original on 26 july 2012. http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/pr ess/newsroom/businessobjects/20070402_006417.epx. Retrieved 2007-06-01. 4.^ "Business Objects Provides Update on Informatica Litigation". Business Objec ts. http://www.businessobjects.com/news/press_release.asp?id=20070518_di. Retrie ved 2007-06-01. [dead link] 5.^ "Bernard Liautaud Joins MySQL Board of Directors". MySQL. http://www.mysql.c om/news-and-events/generate-article.php?id=2004_30. Retrieved October 18, 2010. 6.^ a b Howson, Cindi. Business Objects: the complete reference. RR Donnelley, 2 003. 7.^ "Business Objects Acquires OLAP@Work". May 09, 2000. http://www.windowsitpro .com/article/database-development/business-objects-acquires-olap-work.aspx. 8.^ "Business Objects Announces BusinessObjects MDX Connect, First Product in En hanced OLAP Strategy". Information Management Online. June 27, 2000. http://www. information-management.com/news/2391-1.html. 9.^ Whiting, Rick (July 15, 2002). "Business Objects To Buy Acta In Analysis Sof tware Deal". InformationWeek. http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/enter priseapps/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=6502780. 10.^ "Business Objects Named to Business 2.0's 100 Fastest-Growing Technology Co mpanies List.". http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-146407379.html. 11.^ Evers, Joris (JULY 18, 2003). "Business Objects to acquire Crystal Decision s". InfoWorld. http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/business-objects-acquirecrystal-decisions-689. 12.^ http://www.infoworld.com/t/business/business-objects-acquires-saas-firm-nsi te-208 13.^ http://www.sap.com/about/press/businessobjects/20061130_005913.epx 14.^ Whiting, Rick (Apr. 23, 2007). "Business Objects To Acquire Cartesis". CRN. http://www.crn.com/news/applications-os/199200495/business-objects-to-acquire-c artesis.htm;jsessionid=-XGs2LgE-630uscU42EZkg**.ecappj01. 15.^ Havenstein, Heather (January 30, 2008). "Business Objects founder resigns a fter SAP acquisition". Computer World. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/90 60200/Business_Objects_founder_resigns_after_SAP_acquisition. [edit] External links