Vivisimo Lands HCPro Deal
July 3, 2009
Vivisimo has a new client. HCPro, a health care regulation and revenue cycle management company, will use the Velocity platform, to power MedicareFind.com. That Web site offers definable search of a comprehensive database of Medicare rules, regulations, and CMS documents governing reimbursement–a critical tool for many companies in the health care business. According to a press release here, “Velocity’s ease of implementation, flexible user interface and social search features were key business drivers in selecting Vivisimo to power MedicareFind.com.” MedicareFind.com is a part of HCPro Inc., a portfolio company of Halyard Investments. Halyard is a private equity firm with more than $600 million of capital under management focused on investing in media, communications, and business services companies. If this is the type of company Vivismo is getting contracts with, they may be an even bigger player in search very soon.
Jessica Bratcher, July 3, 2009
Concept Searching Update
July 3, 2009
Founded in 2002, Concept Searching provides licensees with search, auto-classification, taxonomy management and metadata tagging solutions. You can download a fact sheet about the privately firm here. The software can be used on an individual user’s computer or mounted on servers to deliver enterprise solutions. The company’s secret sauce is its statistical metadata generation and classification method. The technology uses concept extraction and compound term processing to facilitate access to unstructured information. The company operates from Stevenage in Hertsfordshire. A list of the Concept Searching offices is here.
The company emphasizes the value of lateral thinking, and its approach to content analysis implements numerical recipes to find these insights and linkages within unstructured text.
When I updated my profile for this company earlier this year, I noted that the firm had signed Portal Solutions, a company that focuses on things Microsoft. The idea is to make it possible for a user to search for “insider dealing” and retrieve documents where that bound phrase does not appear but a related phrase such as “insider trading” does appear. This type of system appeals to intelligence officers and financial analysts. Concept Searching’s methods generated lists of related topics. You can see an example of the system in action by navigating to this page. I ran several test queries and the interface provided useful information and suggestions about other related content in the processed corpus. A screen shot of the output appears below:
Concept Searching is a Microsoft and Fast Search partner. The idea is that Concept Searching’s technology complements and in some cases extends the search and content processing services in Microsoft products. In May 2009, the company sponsored a best practices site for Microsoft SharePoint. The deal involves a number of companies, including ShemaLogic, KnowlegeLake, and K2 Technologies among others. The site is supposed to go live in the next couple of weeks, but I don’t have a url or a date at this time.
The company had a busy May, signing deals with Allianz Global Investors, Directory, and AT&T Government Solutions.
For me, the most interesting system that Concept Searching offers is its ability to generate and classify terms found in SharePoint documents into a taxonomy. The company has prepared a brief video that demonstrates this functionality. You can find the video here. The company’s approach does not require a separate index. Microsoft Enterprise Search can use the outputs of the Concept Searching system. I noted two “uniques” in the narrative to the video, and I remain skeptical about categorical affirmatives. I think the bound phrase extraction and the close integration with SharePoint are benefits. I just bristle when I hear “unique”, which means the one and only anywhere in the world. Broad assertion in my experience.
Concept Searching’s president, Martin Garland, said here:
Our intellectual property is still unique as we are the only statistical search technology able to indentify multi-word patterns within text and insert these patterns directly into the index at ingestion or creation time. We call this “Compound Term Processing”.
Last week I sat in a briefing given by one of Microsoft’s enterprise search team. I thought I heard descriptions of functions that struck me as quite similar to those performed by Concept Search and such companies as Interse in Copenhagen, Denmark.
I think it will be fruitful to watch what features and functions are baked into the upcoming Microsoft Fast ESP version of the old Fast Search & Transfer system. Remember: the roots of Fast Search stretch deep to 1997, a year before Google poked its nose from the Stanford baby crib.
Partners like Concept Searching have invested significant resources in Microsoft technologies. Will Microsoft respect these investments, or will Microsoft in an effort to recoup is $1.23 billion investment take a hard line toward such companies as Concept Searching.
I am on the fence regarding this issue.
Stephen Arnold, July 3, 2009
OECD Data Diving
July 3, 2009
Short honk: Want to explore OECD country data. First, read the BBC story “Exploring the OECD Web Site” then navigate to OECD Explorer. Ideal for those who want short cuts to data analysis.
Stephen Arnold, July 3, 2009
Polyspot: Version 4.8 Released
July 2, 2009
Speed is the name of the game in search, and Polyspot, is keeping its hand in the pot. The French company just released an update of their enterprise search product, V4.8. The new version “speeds faceted search and navigation” and is designed to accurately retrieve relevant information intuitively. Polyspot works by extracting information/metadata/tags/etc. while indexing data repositories, and then it accesses those indexes to speed the search process. The product allows parametric search and faceted navigation while fine tuning results through widgets and tag clouds. There are also filters to allow for combinations of search terms. V4.8 also has an Administrative Console that facilitates facet definition, calibration of a host of widgets, and display options. You can check out the product here.
Jessica Bratcher, July 2, 2009
XyEnterprise Goes for $15 Million
July 1, 2009
Publishing companies relied on specialized, expensive, and very exotic systems to make magazines, books, technical manuals, and other serious types of documents. Then along came Word—unstable, unable to number, and miserable at layout. Then along came long document software for the desktop computer. Within the last five years, the number of low cost, free, subscription, host, and open source publishing systems have flooded into the Beyond Search computer lab in a damp hollow in Kentucky. The addled goose relies on the aging Framemaker program and when he has sufficiently low blood pressure the whizzy Adobe InDesign.
Life became tough for the specialized high end developers of bespoke publishing systems. These software systems cost six figures or more and could create a footnote that could occupy most a book page. Today’s software decides where to put the footnote and how long it may be, thank you. Most folks don’t get too bogged down in footnotes because the systems available in Word and InDesign can be quite challenging to manage.
Trading Markets reported that XyEnterprise is now part of a global integration company. The name of the company is now SDL XySoft. What’s interesting to me is that venerable company changed hands for $15 million. “SDL Acquires XyEnterprise for $14.7 Million” reported:
The acquisition is being funded from SDL’s existing cash resources. A global business, XyEnterprise has a turnover of $9.9 million.
I think that other content management companies will face a similar bargain basement sale price or simply fold up their tent and move to another business sector. Why? Check out free content management systems in Coding Cow. Alternatively, look at SquareSpace.com. The writing is on the wall in our office in Harrod’s Creek. You can follow SDL XySoft on Twitter, which will definitely generate some new sales here in Kentucky.
Stephen Arnold, July 1, 2009
Google and Data Object Visualization
June 30, 2009
The USPTO published US7555471 B2 on June 30, 2009. The Beyond Search goslings think this is a reasonably important Google disclosure. The investors include one super Googler and clutch of other Google rock star engineers. Andrew Hogue is a Googler to watch. If you find his official Google page opaque, try this link. He and his band of engineers have received a patent for “Data Object Visualization.” Don’t get too excited about the graphics. The system and method applies to a core Google system for cleaning up discrepancies in fact tables. If you are a fan of Dilbert, this is the invention that describes one of Google’s smartest agents the official descriptor “janitor”. How smart is the janitor. Smart enough to make dataspaces closer to reality. The USPTO system is sluggish today, so you can get info from FreePatentsOnline.com or one of the other services that provide access to these public documents. I love that janitor lingo too. Googley humor for big time inventions makes clear that the 11 year old Google still possesses math club whimsy. Those examples for atomic mass and volcano are equally illuminating.
Stephen Arnold, June 30, 2009
Lucid Imagination Offers Connectors to Lucene Solr Systems
June 30, 2009
Lucid Imagination now resells ISYS Search Software file filters to offer content access capability to Lucene/Solr open source search systems. This clever move has the happy side effect of allowing Lucid to market the filters, a set of .dlls (dynamic link libraries) normally used in retail products for text extraction, to their own customers, effectively stretching its Lucene/Solr search product into the pay-for-service enterprise data field. It’s a streamlined effort designed to be significantly cheaper than competitor connectors and gets around one of the barriers to broader uptake of open source search technology. Most commercial search vendors do not unbundle their connectors and often use them to justify higher price-tags. This deal may take a lot of wind out of their sails. Lucid will offer five categories of content filters, available separately or in any combination, so a company can customize based on their search needs. Beyond Search was surprised that commercial search vendor is unbundling its technology. The plus is that it gets the Australian company’s foot in the door to the open source market. Meanwhile, Lucid is on the move to strengthen its position bridging the gap between open source and commercial software and will be signing up other commercial software components so Lucene/Solr users can build more robust search solutions.
Jessica Bratcher, June 30, 2009
Google and Scientific Tagging
June 28, 2009
In my talk on June 26, 2007 for NFAIS, a question came from one of the participants in the Webcast of my presentation. A person wanted to know if Google Scholar tagged documents with scientific and other types of more formal language. The example was “heart attack” or “myocardial infarction”. I pointed the questioner to Big Google and this query: backpain. Now scroll to the bottom of the page, and you will see these added features:
This is a component of “universal search” so you see videos, categorized results, and the more precise medical term “fibromyalgia”. My point was the Google has the capability of providing these types of added value tags to the content in Google Scholar and to Google Books, for that matter. So far for public access, more sophisticated content processing outputs are not part of these two services; that is, Google Scholar or Google Books. If you know that Google is adding more sophisticated features to these services, please, use the comments section of this Web log to alert me. As Google grows larger and changes, I have a tough time keeping track of Mother Google’s knitting. People do seem to be resonating with the notion of surfing on Google. I have accepted an invitation to give a talk at the Magazine Publishers Association shindig in New York this fall. The topic? Surfing on Google. It’s not nice to fool, Mother Google.
Stephen Arnold, June 28, 2009
Social Networks and Security
June 28, 2009
Short honk: An azure chip consultant took me to task because of my skepticism about the security of social networks in the enterprise. I direct said azure chip consultant to “Study Shows High Vulnerability of Social Networkers”. No study is definitive, but I find the results interesting. One example: “A third of those polled said they include at least three pieces of personally identifiable information in their profiles.” Great for best pals. Not so great for some enterprise tasks.
Stephen Arnold, June 28, 2009
The Search Horn of Plenty
June 27, 2009
Bundling is starting to poke its nose into enterprise search. The idea is that one buys and end-to-end solution. Each vendor defines “end”, of course. The customer gets a bundle, in effect, a digital horn of plenty. David Neal’s “Autonomy Launches Social Media Contact Solution” may be a search harbinger of things to come. Autonomy has been among the most agile vendors when it comes to packaging search in ways that strike a chord with customers and journalists. (Keep in mind that the addled goose is not a journalist.)
The release is a module within Autonomy’s Meaning Based Marketing Suite, and brings the web directly into the contact centre, according to the firm. AIMO comprises Autonomy’s TeamSite web content management system, the Optimost advanced analytics marketing solution and its IDOL server platform for search and information processing. The application of web content management and analytics within IDOL means that companies can understand and act on detailed customer input in real time, the firm claimed.
Microsoft, based on rain drops of information falling on the goose pond in Harrod’s Creek, is also in the bundling business. Details of Microsoft’s approach are not as crisp as Autonomy’s package, but the broad outlines are starting to be visible through the torrent of marketing and PR about Microsoft’s search systems.
Autonomy, however, is a trend aware company. Its approach warrants watching.
Stephen Arnold, June 27, 2009
