Microsoft, Text Analytics, and Writing
January 21, 2015
I read the marvelously named “Microsoft Acquires Text Analysis Startup Equivio, Plans to Integrate Machine Learning Tech into Office 365: Equivio Zoom In. Find Out.”
Taking a deep breath I read the article. Here’s what I deduced: Word and presumably PowerPoint will get some new features:
While Office 365 offers e-discovery and information governance capabilities, Equivio develops machine learning technologies for both, meaning an integration is expected to make them “even more intelligent and easy to use.” Microsoft says the move is in line with helping its customers tackle “the legal and compliance challenges inherent in managing large quantities of email and documents.”
The Fast Search & Transfer technology is not working out? The dozens of SharePoint content enhancers are not doing their job? The grammar checker is not doing its job?
What is different is that Word is getting more machine learning:
Equivio uses machine learning to let users explore large, unstructured sets of data. The startup’s technology leverages advanced text analytics to perform multi-dimensional analyses of data collections, intelligently sort documents into themes, group near-duplicates, and isolate unique data.
Like Microsoft’s exciting adaptive menus, the new system will learn what the user wants.
Is this a next generation information access system? Is Microsoft nosing into Recorded Future territory?
Nope, but the desire to covert what the user does into metadata seems to percolate in the Microsoft innovation coffee pot.
If Microsoft pulls off this shotgun marriage, I think more pressure will be put on outfits like Content Analyst and Smartlogic.
Stephen E Arnold, January 21, 2015
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
