Columba Global and Its Search System
April 27, 2010
I received an email about a company called Columba Global Systems associated with “naked objects”. A news story with the title “US Analysts Single Out Irish Firm’s Software Package.” became available on April 25, 2010. The document reports a new search system from CGS. I did a quick check of my Overflight repository and located some information. You can get a PowerPoint that provides an overview of the company’s approach at http://www.columba.com/downloads/Columba%20Brief%20Overview.ppt. The company uses components from several vendors to provide its customers with access to the processed content. It is not clear to me if the analyst’s report is an objective summary of the open source intelligence community’s software systems or a sponsored “white paper” / report. There are a number of firms offering “data fusion” products or “mash up systems”. These include Exalead, Fetch Technologies, and Kapow Tech, among others. These systems deliver the type of “one view” of content objects that has been associated with the type of information access in favor among intelligence and law enforcement professionals. In my experience, the key is optimizing the performance of the system. Purpose built systems such as Exalead’s often have an advantage in terms of performance and scalability over systems constructed on toolkits and systems acquired from different vendors. The positioning of the company in the Irish Times’s new story is one more indicator that traditional search is losing ground in some sectors.
Stephen E Arnold, April 27, 2010
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