Business Objects Merges ProductsBusiness Objects Merges Products

Business Objects SA has begun shipping BusinessObjects XI, a new release of its business-intelligence software that completes the integration of Crystal Decisions' reporting software with Business Objects' own product line.

A release of Business Objects software last year supplied front-end integration with Crystal Decisions' reporting product. With BusinessObjects XI (for "extreme insight"), "the integration of the two systems will be seamless," says Jonathan Rothman, data-management director at Emergency Medical Associates, a privately held physician group. A beta test site for BusinessObjects XI, Emergency Medical Associates has used Business Objects software, including its Application Foundation Dashboard Manager, for about four years for data-analysis tasks. But the physician group also used Crystal Reports, before its acquisition by Business Objects in 2003, for running reports against the organization's patient-tracking electronic-records system, Rothman says.

Merging the products "will allow us to take advantage of a single portal to deliver Business Objects reports as well as Crystal reports on the Web," Rothman says.

BusinessObjects XI is available now for Windows systems and will become available for other platforms throughout the first six months of 2005. Pricing is based on configuration.