i2 and Palantir: Resolved Quietly

February 24, 2011

“Palantir’s Third Black Eye: i2 Lawsuit Settled” reported that the legal dispute between two high profile firms, i2 Ltd and Palantir, in the next generation content processing sector will not go to court. Wise move. Both firms have a public face, but much of each firm’s work is done for government entities that operate out of the spot light.

The story focused on the problems that Palantir has faced in recent weeks. These are interesting, but I found the following passage the one with the payload:

i2’s original complaint, however, makes claims that are embarrassing to both companies. The short version: According to i2, Palantir employee Shyam Sankar obtained i2 software representing himself as a principal of SRS Enterprises, a company registered under the names of his parents in Florida. Sankar then allegedly proceeded to analyze i2’s software and use the results to develop tools to import data from i2’s software for use in Palantir’s analytical tools. (For its part, Palantir responded by alleging that i2 had “unclean hands” because it purportedly used information about Palantir’s products obtained through a company i2 acquired.)

For me the issue is the notion of keeping the ball in bounds. Certain types of clients require vendors to operate according to some very specific rules of conduct. When a company gets out of bounds, the other players grouse. When a company goes out of bounds multiple times, the other players continue to grouse, but the major impact is that the company breaking the rules may be kicked out of the game.

There’s not much information about the terms of the settlement. Hopefully the companies playing in the high stakes game of next generation information processing will observe the rules, avoid legal hassles, and make headlines with innovations. My advice? Give Digital Reasoning a close look. Great technology, visualizations, analytics, and rule following.

Stephen E Arnold, February 24, 2011

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Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Business strategy, Legal matters, News, Technology, Text processing

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.