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May 17, 1999

Updated Decision Support

Business Objects adds Web support

By Beth Davis

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usiness Objects SA last week unveiled an updated version of its decision-support software that's designed to help companies build intranets and business-to-business extranets for reporting and analytical applications.

WebIntelligence 2.5 is a thin-client suite of querying, reporting, and online analytical processing tools. It includes a business-intelligence portal that gives users a single, Web entry point for both WebIntelligence and BusinessObjects, the company's client-server reporting and OLAP system.

Eli Lilly and Co. is rolling out WebIntelligence 2.0 so users can view reports on an intranet. The integration of BusinessObjects and WebIntelligence would make it easier for Eli Lilly to further build its intranet, says Brent Houk, Business Objects coordinator at Eli Lilly. Houk says the functionality in WebIntelligence hasn't yet caught up to BusinessObjects, which is based on client-server. When and if it does, Eli Lilly plans to switch to a completely Web business intelligence infrastructure. "You can maintain everything on one server," Houk says. "That saves a lot of headaches."

New features include a searchable report catalog that organizes reports by categories; the ability to schedule report updates and automatic updates that alert users to refreshed reports; and viewers that can use ActiveX or HTML technology so reports can be optimized for browser environments.

WebIntelligence 2.5 also has a customizable user interface and the ability to add server components as extensions to the WebIntelligence server. For example, a company could integrate a geographic display system into WebIntelligence so users can drive report criteria by a clickable map interface.

WebIntelligence 2.5 will ship for Microsoft Windows NT and Sun Solaris later this quarter and for HP-UX and IBM AIX in the second half of this year. Pricing hasn't been set.