BUSINESS OBJECTS LAUNCHES THE "KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE"
Thousands of Customers and Employees Exchange Technical Knowledge, Ideas, and Solutions Online
San Jose, Calif. – October 16, 2001 – If knowledge is power, then customers of Business Objects are flexing massive amounts of muscle online. Today Business Objects (NASDAQ: BOBJ), the world’s leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, announced the launch of the Business Objects Knowledge Exchange, an online question-and-answer forum that lets customers and Business Objects employees share knowledge, ideas, and opinions over the internet. To date, more than 3,000 customers and employees have logged on to the Business Objects Knowledge Exchange, a new addition to the online customer support website at Business Objects.
Jane Garstin, vice president of worldwide customer support at Business Objects, will introduce the Knowledge Exchange at the Business Objects International User Conference in Las Vegas, October 21-24. The customer support exhibit area also will contain a special section offering conference attendees a chance to sign up, and log on to the Knowledge Exchange.
"There are 15,000 people in our knowledge community, including 1,000 technical Business Objects employees, and some 13,500 Business Objects customers," said Garstin. "We believe it is extremely powerful to share knowledge. As business intelligence increasingly becomes a mission critical application for driving businesses and customer relationships, the number of individuals with valuable experience and best practices for how they use Business Objects strategically is also increasing. Our goal is to use the Knowledge Exchange to link these people together."
Customer Benefits
The Knowledge Exchange enhances Business Objects customer support by providing the Business Objects user community with another resource for information – other customers and employees. In addition, users will have the ability to improve their own skills quickly by using the community to educate themselves. Customers access the Knowledge Exchange by going to
www.techsupport.businessobjects.com and then double clicking on the prominent link for the Knowledge Exchange logo. Customers who have entry to the Business Objects support system can access the site, and enrich the database daily because they are contributing content that other customers may want to know about, in terms of best practice usage or products."The Knowledge Exchange is an excellent forum to share Business Objects knowledge," said Dhirendra Gehlot, senior consultant for Agere Systems, and a Knowledge Exchange user. "I use it to find out what others are doing, what challenges they face, and how they are handling them. Or, what strategy they’re using to address complex technical issues. If my past experience can be of any help to someone, I share it."
Business Objects Promotes Quality Content
To help promote the high quality of content on the Knowledge Exchange, Business Objects has created a rating system for users to rate the answers on a four-star system. If someone gives a piece of information that is useful, they will receive four stars. To keep quality of content high, answers with lower ratings may be purged from the system, making it easier for users to find the most useful information.
Recent Questions Answered on the Knowledge Exchange
The Knowledge Exchange covers a wide range of topics, including sizing, performance and security, set analysis, enterprise analytic applications, and databases and connectivity. Log on to the Knowledge Exchange for the answers to these recently posted questions:
The Business Objects Knowledge Exchange is powered by QUIQ, Inc., the leader of mass collaborative customer support.
About Business Objects
Business Objects is the world’s leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions. Business intelligence lets organizations access, analyze, and share information internally with employees and externally with customers, suppliers, and partners. It helps organizations improve operational efficiency, build profitable customer relationships, and develop differentiated product offerings.
The company’s products include BusinessObjects
Ô 2000, the industry’s leading integrated business intelligence toolset and platform; and BusinessObjectsÔ Analytics, an integrated suite of enterprise analytic applications.Business Objects pioneered the modern BI industry in 1990 by inventing a patented "semantic layer" that insulates users from the complexity of databases. In 1995, the company was first to focus on enterprise-scale BI deployments and today supports customers with more than 20,000 users. The company moved aggressively to the internet in 1997 by pioneering the market for BI extranets, a market that it continues to lead today. In 2000, the company delivered the industry’s first interactive mobile BI solution. Today, Business Objects continues to innovate, creating and delivering a unique vision for enterprise analytic applications.
Business Objects has more than 13,500 customers in over 80 countries. The company’s stock is publicly traded under the ticker symbols NASDAQ: BOBJ and Euronext Paris (Sicovam code 12074). It is included in the SBF 120 and IT CAC 50 French stock market indexes. Business Objects can be reached at 408-953-6000 and
www.businessobjects.com.
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BusinessObjects and WebIntelligence are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects S.A. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
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