History
Bernard Liautaud co-founded Business Objects in 1990 together with Denis Payre and was chief executive officer until September 2005, then became chairman and chief strategy officer until January 2008. In 1990, the first customer, Coface, was signed. The company went public on NASDAQ in September 1994, making it the first European software company listed in the United States. In 2002, the company made Time Magazine Europe's Digital Top 25 of 2002 and were BusinessWeek Europe Stars of Europe.
On 7 October 2007, SAP AG announced that it would acquire Business Objects for $6.8B. As of 22 January 2008, the corporation is fully operated by SAP; this is seen as part of a growing consolidation trend in the business software industry, with Oracle acquiring Hyperion in 2007 and IBM acquiring Cognos in 2008.
Business Objects had two headquarters in San Jose, California, and Paris, France, but their biggest office was in Vancouver, BC. The company's stock was traded on both the Nasdaq and Euronext Paris (BOB) stock exchanges.
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