Expert System Is Getting with the AI Boomlet

March 17, 2016

I read “Cognitive Computing Specialist Expands US R&D.” The company is Expert System, founded in Modena (not Bologna) in 1989. The company will be celebrating its 27th birthday this year. Apart from Lexmark ISYS and OpenText’s Fulcrum, Expert System is one of the most senior vendors of semantic technology. To respond the vocabulary of IBM Watson, Expert System is now billing itself as a “cognitive computing specialist.”

The passage I highlighted with a quarter century old marker I found in my Expert System file box was:

The new labs in Palo Alto, California., and Rockville, Maryland., will focus on expanding the company’s Cogito cognitive computing software, the Italian company (EXSY.MI) said Tuesday (March 15). The U.S. locations expand the network of Cogito Labs that includes three in Italy along with facilities in Grenoble, France, and Madrid.

That’s a lot of research laboratories for a company whose share price has only recently blipped above $1.97. See this Google Finance chart. In the past six months, the company has deemphasized its “semantic” positioning and embraced the “cognitive” buzzword.

Other notable developments include:

Breaking the company into two separate units. This news arrived in October 2015. See “Expert System Announces Plans to Structure U.S. Presence into Two Separate Companies for Public and Private Sectors.” The announcement followed hard on the heels of Expert System’s acquisition of the Temis outfit. Temis was created by a former IBM whiz but ran into a revenue ceiling several years ago. The Temis DNA may explain the “cognitive” appellation. I won’t go into the Watson-esque heritage. Just think rules. Training. Lots of time and human resources.
A push into the high growth security sector. See “Expert System Launches Cogito Risk Watcher Software.” With the struggles some cybersecurity outfits are facing (example, Norse), one would think cybersecurity might be a somewhat crowded sector. In our research for the forthcoming “Dark Web Notebook,” we logged many references to Terbium Labs and Recorded Future, among others. We did not locate a single reference to Expert System’s Risk Watcher. Perhaps our research is incomplete?
A deal with Quantic, a company with security intelligence solutions. See “Expert System Partners with Quantic Research for Security Intelligence Solutions.” Quantic Research is a subsidiary for the Holding Nivi Group, The Nivi Group is interesting. Here’s the message Google displays about the organization’s Web site:

The google warning for Navi Group. March 16, 2016.

Interesting relationships. Expert System may want to do some checking to make sure that references in write ups about their innovations do not trigger oddball Google alerts.

To sum up, Expert System will be competing in some hot markets for top research talent. Maybe the downturn in unicorn valuations will free up some human resources for Expert System to hire?

The company is definitely lab rich. The stock price suggests that revenue may be less fecund.

Stephen E Arnold, March 17, 2016

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under AI, News, 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.