Business intelligence (BI) giant Business Objects will tomorrow detail plans to establish itself more firmly as a provider of broad information management systems, instead of just reporting tools, according to a source close to the company.

The vendor is expected to use its annual European Business Insight conference to explain its push into the integration layer through the development of underlying data integration, federation, metadata management and enterprise information integration (EII) capabilities.

Specifically, Business Objects is expected to unveil a new Data Federator capability to allow firms to run real-time data queries across heterogeneous data sources, and a new Metadata Management module to help firms improve monitoring of data quality.

A source at the company said "we're investing heavily in the information that underpins BI [and] becoming more of an information management vendor rather than one purely focused on the BI side".

The strategy is likely to bring the vendor into competition with other data integration specialists and IBM, which recently announced plans to address data integration and management issues from its position as an infrastructure vendor.

Separately, Business Objects is also expected to extend its appeal to mid-market firms by launching a new suite called Crystal Vision. The new toolset will incorporate Business Objects existing Crystal Reports, Crystal Excelsius and Live Office offerings, the company said, and will provide firms with easy-to-install BI capabilities and a way to quickly develop reporting dashboards.