Trail Blazers

> BERNARD LIAUTAUD The chairman of Business Objects took the company past the $1 billion mark this year in the hot business intelligence software arena.

He faces stiff competition from rivals Cognos and Hyperion but appears to have a leg up in the channel. Now the biggest worry that he and the company&'s new CEO, John Schwartz, face may be pending competition from the likes of Oracle and Microsoft.

> MIKE LAZARIDIS and JAMES BALSILLIE With ever more applications going wireless, Research In Motion&'s sales and profits are booming. But success breeds competition, and RIM&'s pioneering co-CEOs are fending off plenty of arrows these days from Nokia, Palm and Motorola. After reporting a 58 percent jump in second-quarter sales to $490 million, RIM&'s stock fell. Some analysts fretted about a projection that the company would only add about 1.5 million new subscribers in the second half.

> DAN WARMENHOVEN Network Appliance helped create the network storage market. This year, thanks to an expanding channel and an OEM deal with IBM, CEO Warmenhoven is continuing to stay ahead of the market. Sales were up 25 percent to $448 million in the company&'s most recent quarterly report.