June 11, 2007

Dear BusinessObjects Data Integrator Customers,

As a current customer of BusinessObjects™ Data Integrator, you may be aware of the Informatica lawsuit against Business Objects. The purpose of this letter is to bring you up to date on the status of this on-going matter and, more importantly, reassure you of the fact that this will have no impact for you despite several deceptive claims by Informatica.

Informatica has engaged in a very aggressive, but unfortunately misleading, campaign to paint a picture of pending disaster for BusinessObjects Data Integrator. I would like to assure you that nothing is further from the truth.

On May 11th, Business Objects announced the release and immediate availability of a new version of BusinessObjects Data Integrator. This release proactively removed the one small, discrete feature at the center of the Informatica lawsuit. This feature is an embedded dataflow with one input and one output. Click here to view the full press release.

In addition to proactively removing the minor feature involved in the lawsuit, version 11.7.2 of Data Integrator continues to extend and expand our industry-leading offering. Specific enhancements include:

Following you will find responses to questions you may have about the injunction issued on May 16th against Business Objects.

Can Business Objects still sell and support Data Integrator?
Absolutely. The injunction was filed against future shipping products that include one minor feature. Since our current shipping product already fully complies with the ruling, this is not an issue. Business Objects released a non-infringing version of Data Integrator on May 11, 2007, prior to the legal injunction ruling. The release is currently available. Because the injunction only applies to future shipments, there is NO impact to customers who acquired Data Integrator prior to the date of the injunction. In addition, Business Objects can continue to support customers utilizing the old version.

What feature was removed?
The feature that was removed is the ability to save and reuse one type of embedded data flow, which is an embedded data flow that has one input and one output. This feature is not available in new versions of Data Integrator, but customers who acquired older versions are unaffected. Other types of embedded data flows can still be used or reused as before.

What if I’m currently using the removed feature?
You can continue to use your existing product with this feature, and the court has ruled that Business Objects may continue to provide you ongoing technical support for that product.

If you upgrade to the new version of Data Integrator, you can continue running your existing jobs containing embedded data flows. However, you will not be able to reuse them to create new embedded data flows.

If I am using the old version of Data Integrator, can I buy additional licenses for my current implementation?
Business Objects cannot sell licenses of the old version of Data Integrator, even if this only requires a paper license. The product codes associated with Data Integrator XI Release 2 version 11.6 have been deactivated. The products that are currently shipping are:

Does the removal of this feature reduce the power or value of Data Integrator?
No, not at all. Data Integrator has been recognized as a leading ETL technology for many years. We are on the forefront of innovation in the data integration market, with features like broad and deep connectivity to RDBMSs, ERPs, XML, Excel and many types of file formats; a rich set of built-in transformations and functions; a highly-scalable, grid-enabled parallel execution engine; tightly integrated data quality, audit and validation rules; widely recognized easy-to-use integrated development environment; and deep, end-to-end business intelligence integration.

Reusability is important to me; does this mean I can no longer reuse ETL data flows or jobs?
No, absolutely not. Although saving and reusing embedded data flows with at least one input and output is not available (either directly or through equivalent functionality), there are many other ways to achieve reusability in Data Integrator. Informatica is trying to scare customers into believing that reusability is restricted to this particular use of embedded data flows, but that is not the case. You can continue to reuse jobs, workflows, data flows, datastore definitions, custom functions, and other objects as you have in the past. Even reusing embedded data flows is fine, as long as there is at most one input or one output port. Moreover, there are numerous ways to copy and reuse transformation objects, including using and editing other EDFs or by replicating data flows and editing them. In addition, features like Datastore Configuration make it much simpler and more elegant to achieve true reusability.

What happens next?
Business Objects has already complied with the injunction and the newest version of Data Integrator is shipping without the feature in question. The entire Data Integrator offering was not affected - only a small, infrequently utilized feature was removed. As the most recent ruling does not conclude the proceedings, Business Objects will continue the legal process and will fight vigorously to defend our technology.

Thank you for your continued support of Data Integrator and for remaining a loyal Business Objects customer.

Best Regards,

Pascal Clement
Vice President, Enterprise Information Management
Business Objects

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