IDC Highlights The Next Wave of Information Access Companies

Information access, if it isn't already a big issue for your business, is going to be massive as we approach data meltdown in the coming years, IDC names those who could save us.

Access For All

IDC's latest US$ 3,500 report offers an insight into the developers that can help companies gain complete access to their data and content, helping to maximize revenue and the business intelligence that can be gleaned from it.

The study focuses on those companies that did less than US$ 100 million of business last year, that deliver innovative solutions to meet information access needs. The companies listed applied to be entered into IDC's Innovation Awards contest, so weren't picked out of the ether.

Meet the Gang

Among the names on the list are the likes of Attensity which works in semantic analysis, Attivio for its unfied information access work, Coveo (enterprise search), Crowdcast (business intelligence), Expert System (semantic Web search) and Kapow (data extraction and migration).

These companies and others like Accept, Sinequa and Zilliant represent the growing trends in search applications, unified data access and management and collaborative decision management. All of which try to make it easier to find out what's going on across an enterprise.

Finding the Facts

Sinequa would certainly be of interest to those suffering information overload. Its contextual business search can be installed within a few weeks (hardly cloud-era speed, but this is serious stuff for major enterprises) and can trawl via connectors through both structured and unstructured information.

Users can then search for information across the company (globally via its multiple dictionaries and linguistic analysis) while admins can mine for data trends, hunting for that essential BI data. With syntax and semantics, Sinequa looks for what users are actually asking for, and not just casting a vanilla blanket search, just one example of the guture of information access.

For information on some of the other vendors, check out:

• Attivio AIE Unifies Structured and Unstructured Information
• A Look at Automated Content Migration: Part 1 - Kapow Technologies
• Coveo 6.1 Features an Outlook Sidebar, Enterprise 2.0 Search and Analytics
• Attensity & Biz360 'Open Up the Enterprise' with Social CRM