Business Objects says it's partnering with IBM, Plumtree Software, and Viador to integrate InfoView with their systems. "Business Objects isn't pretending to be an enterprise portal-which is to their benefit," says Keith Gile, an analyst with Giga Information Group. "They're not overextending themselves." Business Objects is entering the market later than some competitors, Gile says, but the final product might be better designed than some other vendors' "pasted-together" portals.

InfoView will collect and consolidate reports and content and store them in a central repository. It collects information generated by Business Objects' query and reporting tools; Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations; Adobe Acrobat PDF files; and Zip files.

The software will categorize stored content and offer keyword searches, as well as publish and distribute reports through a company's intranet or via an extranet. The system will also provide administrators with document-level security and profile-based administration-the latter letting managers control what information users can access.

Zurich-US Insurance Group in Schaumburg, Ill., already uses Business Object's WebIntelligence as part of an extranet through which brokers and customers access claims and billing information in a data warehouse. E-business director Frank Colletti says InfoView's support for PDF files could be valuable because it would let the company provide brokers and customers with online copies of bills and other documents. "We'd love to be able to put PDF files through the extranet system," he says.

InfoView is expected to be available in the third quarter. Business Objects plans to sell it as part of the company's business-intelligence suite and as a standalone product. Pricing hasn't been set.