Startup City Blog

Topics:   Content Management : Startup City

  • Email this page E-mail this page
  • Print this page Print this page
  • Bookmark and Share
  • icon

Full Nelson: Recommind's Enterprise Search On TechWebTV


Posted by Fritz Nelson, Jan 29, 2008 05:24 PM

Groupware. Portals. Enterprise search. I'm not saying they're irrelevant, I just sort of forgot about them. Like tricycles, ER, and Oasis; the use of the word "bashful." But they're all relevant in some way (except probably Oasis), especially enterprise search: Witness -- speaking of bashful -- Microsoft's recent purchase of Fast (see video below for a fun perspective from Steve Ballmer at Web 2.0 on Microsoft and search).


And it turns out that the market is growing at 39%, according to this article. It's especially meaningful at a time when regulations about document retention are omnipresent. So it's little surprise that Recommind has made (made up?) a name for itself in conducting searches across all types of disparate data within a corporation. (See video interview below.)

With the exploding growth and evolving types of information, especially those coming from newer Web applications, search tools must get more sophisticated and, frankly, more relevant. The drivers include the usual scary things that emanate from "the man": government regulation, the threat of lawsuits, the fear of losing knowledge. As you might imagine, financial and health care companies are on the top of Recommind's target (and current) list of customers.

Recommind’s MindServer technology looks at the language within documents, and the company says it can extract concepts and correlate them with concepts in other documents. In fact, it's created its own marketing lingo for this (brace yourself): conceptual search platform. And it works in any type of document that has a contextual nature. Let's review: not just content, not just context, but also concepts. Its search technology is based on statistic modeling it calls probabilistic latent semantic analysis. Sounds sexy.

Recommind also has made its presence felt in the e-discovery arena (if you don’t know what this is, it’s a good thing; in fact, I would highly recommend e-avoidance, but that's for another day). It has been part of a working group that has created an XML schema called EDRM, which allows sharing of information among repositories for the specific purpose of providing information during lawsuits.

« DEMO Update: Skyfire Debuts New Mobile Browser | Main | Panic Mode: Are CIOs Being Pressured To Cut? »



Sign Up Now
For InformationWeek News Alerts




This is a public forum. United Business Media and its affiliates are not responsible for and do not control what is posted herein. United Business Media makes no warranties or guarantees concerning any advice dispensed by its staff members or readers.

Community standards in this comment area do not permit hate language, excessive profanity, or other patently offensive language. Please be aware that all information posted to this comment area becomes the property of United Business Media LLC and may be edited and republished in print or electronic format as outlined in United Business Media's Terms of Service.

Important Note: This comment area is NOT intended for commercial messages or solicitations of business.