Our History
"Business Objects was born out of an idea, out of hope, and out of great motivation."Bernard Liautaud
chairman of the board and chief strategy officer, Business Objects
- In 1990, Business Objects was founded in Paris.
- In 1991, we signed our first customer, France Telecom, after they viewed a prototype of our first product. Today, France Telecom has deployed Business Objects across its enterprise to over 45,000 users.
- By 1992, we were already profitable.
- In 1994, we launched BusinessObjects v3.0 and went public on the NASDAQ - the first European company in history to do so.
- In 1995, Business Objects was the first to focus on enterprise-scale business intelligence (BI) deployments.
- In 1996, we entered the OLAP market and launched BusinessObjects v4.0. Bernard Liautaud was named one of Business Week's "Hottest Entrepreneurs of the Year."
- In 1997, we crossed the $100M chasm, pioneered the BI extranet market, and introduced BusinessObjects Web Intelligence.
- In 1999, our No. 1 customer today, General Electric (GE), started working with us. This year, we also went public in France on the Premier Marché.
- In 2000, we delivered the industry's first interactive mobile BI solution.
- In 2001, we opened our San Jose, Calif., office and SAP signed an OEM and reseller agreement to bundle Crystal Reports.
- In 2002, we acquired Blue Edge Software and Acta Technologies. Bernard Liautaud was named to Business Week's "Stars of Europe," and the company was named one of the "100 Fastest Growing Tech Companies" by Business 2.0. Leading direct retailer Lands' End also deployed one of the first executive dashboards, which resulted in a one-third reduction in lost sales over the year.
- In 2003, we acquired Crystal Decisions. We also released Dashboard Manager, BusinessObjects Enterprise 6, and BusinessObjects Performance Manager.
- In 2004, we launched our new combined company with the slogan, "Our Future is Clear, Crystal Clear." We launched Crystal v10 and BusinessObjects v6.5 in 2004, too.
- In 2005, we became a billion-dollar company and John Schwarz joined us as chief executive officer. We also launched BusinessObjects XI and Crystal Xcelsius, acquired SRC Software, Medience, and Infommersion, and celebrated 15 years of growth and success.
- In 2006, we acquired Firstlogic, Inc., Armstrong Laing Limited (ALG), and nSite. We also released crystalreports.com and BusinessObjects Data Quality XI.
- In the first half of 2007, we have so far: expanded our mid-market product line, completed the acquisition of Cartesis, and unveiled our new branding, 'Let There Be Light', with a 24 Hours of Light Web event about the power of collective intelligence in action.
- In 2008, Business Objects was acquired by SAP to Lead Emerging Market for Business Performance Optimization.
Transforming Business Intelligence
Our mission is to transform the way the world works. We are not just a business intelligence company. We are in the business of helping companies become more intelligent. This is our story. (WMV, 2 min 20 sec)
