Business Objects Updates Business Intelligence Suite

Business Objects SA is taking the next step in the long process of integrating Crystal Decisions Inc.'s business-intelligence technology with its own. On Tuesday, Business Objects, which acquired Crystal Decisions in December for $1.2 billion, will debut a new release of its business-intelligence software suite with complete front-end integration with Crystal Decisions' software.

With the Business Objects 6.5 release, companies that have both Business Objects and Crystal Enterprise 10 software can use the two together. Users of the Crystal Reports reporting tool, for example, can access Business Objects' query technology, which translates data, pulled from multiple sources into a single business language.

The new release has a business-intelligence portal that provides a combined view of information in Business Objects and Crystal systems, and Business Objects Dashboard Manager users can view reports generated by Crystal. A new contextual report linking feature lets developers link data in reports from either Business Objects or Crystal software and make it usable within either environment. And a new Web services interface extends business intelligence applications based on Business Objects or Crystal.

Business Objects' timetable calls for the development of a completely merged product line by the end of this year.

In addition to Business Objects and Crystal integration, the release includes a new version of WebIntelligence with improved performance and scalability. The dashboard has more personalization capabilities for performance-management applications. And the suite includes five new financial and regulatory-compliance analysis applications. The software is available now on Windows and Solaris platforms and will be available on all platforms by the end of the third quarter.