Business Objects, a leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, has announced the launch of Business Objects Crystal Decisions Professional. This new edition of the Business Objects Crystal Decisions suite is tailored specifically for the needs of small and mid-size companies and is the second mid-market offering launched by the company since February 2007. The announcement underscores an aggressive commitment from Business Objects to continue to deliver flexible, easy-to-deploy, and affordable BI solutions for mid-market companiesùthose companies with less than $1 billion in annual revenues or fewer than 1,000 employees.
Business Objects is the first and only BI vendor to offer an all-in-one business intelligence and data integration product designed for the mid-market. Business Objects Crystal Decisions Professional offers the benefits of highly developed data integration functionalities as well as intelligent reporting, ad hoc query and analysis, and dashboard capabilities. The data integration feature provides the ability to extract data from different database types that include Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, Oracle, Ingres, and many others, and integrate that data into a single target source. This is especially critical for small and mid-sized companies that need to integrate their business intelligence functionality across multiple data sources. Companies new to Business Objects Crystal Decisions will also find Professional provides the flexibility to deploy and use business intelligence to complement existing business applications, data sources, and platforms, and delivers insight in a single, affordable package to help solve their business problems.
"Our customers look to us to provide innovative solutions that are easy to deploy, easy to use, and can deliver immediate value," said Todd Rowe, vice president of worldwide mid-market business at Business Objects. "We continue to be the industry's leading BI vendor delivering just thatùpowerful business intelligence solutions at an affordable price point, customized for mid-market users. With the release of Business Objects Crystal Decisions Professional, we have added a new set of data integration capabilities to an already market-leading reporting, ad hoc query and analysis, and dashboard solution all of which is designed to fit within the price and deployment constraints of any growing company."
BI One of IT's Top Priorities
"We have found that business intelligence is one of the top IT priorities this year for mid-market CIOs," said Robert Anderson, research vice president for small and mid-sized businesses at Gartner. "With that urgency in mind, it is increasingly important for vendors to address this market with BI solutions that are specifically tailored to the needs of this growing segment."
The launch of Business Objects Crystal Decisions Professional comes on a wave of strong momentum over the last three months following the entry of the Standard edition to the market in February. The Professional edition takes the capabilities of Crystal Decisions to the next level for the rapidly growing customer segment of small and mid-sized companies.
Delivers Real-Time Data
Columbia Valley Community Healthcare, a clinic in central Washington that provides medical, dental and behavioral health services to underserved communities, needed a solution to streamline patient case management by aggregating patient data in real-time, ultimately improving patient outcomes and even saving lives.
"Our number one goal is to deliver the best care possible, and Crystal Decisions will enable us to deliver critical patient information to every person involved in a case, from the physician and case managers, to the pharmacists and dieticians," said Mike Hodgson, chief information officer, Columbia Value Community Healthcare. "Coming from a Fortune 500 company and understanding the value business intelligence can provide, I have never been so excited about a product with this level of sophistication."
The Bethany Group LLC, based in Irvine, California, is one of the fastest growing top 50 national multi-family property management firms in the U.S. The company recently selected BOCD to provide their executive team with an accurate and consolidated view of their business.
"We felt as if we were traveling the country at top speed, without a roadmap," said Rob Eitzen, director of programming and analysis at The Bethany Group. "Our executives need an accurate view of our business that is simple, clear, and will quickly give them the business information they are looking for. With the price point and ease-of-use of Business Objects Crystal Decisions, it is hard to see why any growing company would not take advantage of it."
Another Business Objects customer, Central Maine Medical Family (CMMF), which operates three acute medical facilities in Maine, needed to consolidate financial information and roll out reporting capabilities across its three care facilities in Lewiston, Bridgton and Rumford. Business Objects Crystal Decisions provides greater insights allowing CMMF to easily track revenue against targets and better match staffing to patient requirements, resulting in greater overall efficiency and reduced costs.
"We needed to create a central source of accurate information that was available to all of our hospital division managers, said Wayne Bennett, vice president of finance at Central Maine Medical Family in Lewiston. "After deploying Business Objects Crystal Decisions, we have consolidated all our performance reporting and created cascading dashboards. Business Objects has put greater insight and key actionable information at our fingertips."
Availability and Pricing
Business Objects Crystal Decisions Professional is generally available from Business Objects and its channel partners in twelve languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese. To protect customers' initial investment, Standard edition customers who upgrade to the Professional edition are required to pay only the difference between their initial purchase and the Professional edition list price.
About Business Objects
Business Objects has been a pioneer in business intelligence (BI) since the dawn of the category. Today, as the world's leading BI software company, Business Objects transforms the way the world works through intelligent information. The company helps illuminate understanding and decision-making at more than 43,000 organizations around the globe. Through a combination of innovative technology, global consulting and education services, and the industry's strongest and most diverse partner network, Business Objects enables companies of all sizes to make transformative business decisions based on intelligent, accurate, and timely information.
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