Smartlogic Buys SchemaLogic: Consoliation Underway
September 15, 2011
Mergers have captured the attention of the media and for good reason. Deals which fuse two companies create new opportunities and can disrupt certain market sectors. For example, Hewlett Packard’s purchase of Autonomy has bulldozed the search landscape. Now Smartlogic has acquired SchemaLogic and is poised to have the same effect on the world of taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, and the hot business sector described as “tagging” or “metadata.”
As you know, Smartlogic has emerged as one of the leaders in content tagging, metadata, indexing, ontologies, and associated services. The company’s tag line is that its systems and methods deliver content intelligence solutions. Smartlogic supports the Google search technology, open source search solutions such as Solr, and Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Fast Search. Smartlogic’s customers include UBS, Yell.com, Autodesk, the McClatchy Company, and many others.
With the acquisition of SchemaLogic, Smartlogic tries to become one of the leading if not the leading company in the white hot semantic content processing market. The addition of SchemaServer to the platform adds incremental functionality and extends solutions for customers. The merger adds more clients to Smartlogic’s current list of Fortune 1000 and global enterprise customers and confirms the company as the leading provider of Content Intelligent Software. Jeremy Bentley told Beyond Search:
Smartlogic has a reputation for providing innovative Content Intelligence solutions alongside an impeccable delivery record. We look forward to providing Grade A support to our new clients, and to broadening the appeal of Semaphore.
SchemaLogic was founded in 2003 by Breanna Anderson (CTO) and Andrei Ovchinnikov (a Russian martial arts expert with a love of taxonomy and advisory board member) and Trevor Traina (chairman and entrepreneur; he sold Compare.Net comparison shopping company to Microsoft in 1999). SchemaLogic launched its first product in November 2003. The company’s flagship product is SchemaServer. The executive lineup has changed since the company’s founding, but the focus on indexing and management of controlled term lists has remained.
A company can use the SchemaLogic products to undertake master metadata management for content destined for a search and retrieval system or a text analytics / business intelligence system. However, unlike fully automated tagging systems, SchemaLogic products can make use of available controlled term lists, knowledge bases, and dictionaries. The system includes an administrative interface and index management tools which permit the licensee to edit or link certain concepts. The idea is that SchemaServer (and MetaPoint which is the SharePoint variant) provides a centralized repository which other enterprise applications can use as a source of key words and phrases. When properly resourced and configured, the SchemaLogic approach eliminates the Balkanization and inconsistency of indexing which is a characteristic of many organization’s content processing systems.
Early in the company’s history, SchemaLogic focused on SharePoint. The firm added support for Linux and Unix. Today, when I think of SchemaLogic, I associate the company with Microsoft SharePoint. The MetaPoint system works when one wants to improve the quality of Sharepoint metadata. But the system can be used for eDiscovery and applications where compliance guidelines require consistent application of terminology? Time will tell, particularly as the market for taxonomy systems continues to soften.
Three observations are warranted:
First, not since Business Objects’ acquisition of Inxight has a content processing deal had the potential to disrupt an essential and increasingly important market sector.
Second, with the combined client list and the complementary approach to semantic technology, Smartlogic is poised to move forward rapidly with value added content processing services. Work flow is one area where I expect to see significant market interest.
Third, smaller firms will now find that size does matter, particularly when offering products and services to Fortune 1000 firms.
Our view is that there will be further content centric mergers and investments in the run up to 2012. Attrition is becoming a feature of the search and content processing sector.
Stephen E Arnold, September 15, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
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