Business Intelligence (BI) software specialist Business Objects continued its push into the midmarket yesterday with the launch of a new reporting and data integration suite aimed at businesses with less than a $1bn in revenue or under 1,000 staff.

The company kicked off its foray into the midmarket earlier this year with the launch of Business Objects Crystal Decisions Standard Edition and has now extended the portfolio with the launch of a new Professional Edition of the reporting suite that also features data integration capabilities.

The data integration functionality allows firms to extract data from different databases, including Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, Oracle and Ingres, and integrate it into a single target source. The company said the integration capabilities are "especially critical for small and mid-sized companies that need to integrate their business intelligence functionality across multiple data sources".

Todd Rowe, vice president of worldwide mid-market business at Business Objects said that the product – which is available in 12 languages - had also been developed to "fit within the price and deployment constraints of any growing company".

Robert Anderson, research vice president for small and mid-sized businesses at analysts Gartner, welcomed the move, claiming that with BI currently a top priority for midmarket IT chiefs there was a growing need for reporting solutions that are specifically tailored to their requirements.