Autonomy Corp Plc, the UK knowledge management technology firm, is to license its adaptive probabilistic concept modeling (APCM) technology to SageMaker Inc, which will integrate it in its Enterprise Information Portal. APCM enables employees on a corporate intranet to process relevant, unstructured information such as email, web pages and news articles, and to categorize it using natural language search and insert hypertext links.
Autonomy has already formed similar OEM partnerships with collaborative knowledge management firm Intraspect; UK document management company, Global Recall; Nexor, a US email software provider; Octane, a US sales automation firm; and FutureTense, a US customer relationship management vendor.
Autonomy intends to form a partnership in the enterprise resource planning arena in the next two months, according to managing director and CEO Mike Lynch. Lynch believes that ERP applications are running out of gas and that decision-makers need the faster access to information that vendors like Autonomy can provide.
The company is currently expanding at a rate of 50% a quarter, says Lynch, driven by what he calls a fundamental shift going on in the market between the format of information as stored in a database, and the kind of unstructured data found on the internet. Email, web site pages and the kind of news digests passed round companies internally are all written in a human-friendly form, not a computer-friendly form, he says.
SageMaker will embed the technology in its SageWave enterprise information portal and target its traditional customer base: the oil and gas, power and utilities, insurance, telecoms and pharmaceuticals markets, according to CEO Ron Bienvenu. SageWave costs from $1 to $65 per seat per month, depending on content and complexity. Future markets, says Bienvenu, are likely to be in government, media and automotive industries.
