Safer search for SMEs

By Tracey Caldwell

Software company ISDD has thrown a lifeline to SMEs drowning in a sea of unstructured data. It claims to offer enterprise-search technology as good as or better than big name rivals Autonomy and Google for up to half the price.

OmniQMax was first developed to meet specifications set out by the official enquiry into the Ladbroke Rail disaster. The enquiry found that vital safety information was not being identified; the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) set ISDD the task of developing a system that would handle ambiguity and changes in grammar, so that instances where two people described issues differently would be identified as the same risk. OmniQMax was developed over four years based on the mathematical Bayesian probability theory.

“We came to a decision two years ago to develop OmniQMax beyond its initial use as a safety-intelligence tool to one that could process unstructured information in other areas, such as recruitment and e-mail compliance,” says Sukhbir Sidhu, managing director of IDSS. The application can search 250 document types and databases, allowing information to be extracted from databases without having to use specific query formats. In contrast to high-end rival Autonomy, ISDD has pitched its price point to the medium-sized enterprise, adopting a high-volume sales model.

OmniQMax is priced at £65,000, including the partner’s percentage cut. Keith Vooght, ISDD’s commercial director, compares this with Google’s recently released GB 8008 corporate enterprise-search application. “We are watching Google with interest. Its GB8008 costs $450,000 but it only handles html documents and keywords, so you still need to search through the document to find the relevant bit. Few systems filter and find the actual text.”

According to Whit Andrews, an analyst at Gartner Group, “The enterprise-search market is still reeling from the impact of the Google pricing model, and takes blows periodically from ASP search engines such as Atomz and open-source search capabilities from the Lucene project. Add to that the low-priced capabilities from vendors such as dtSearch and ISYS, and ISDD will find that simplicity of use will be as important a differentiator as price.”

“The enterprise-search market is too crowded and fragmented to feel the effect of a new product like this, although prices should come down through commoditisation, not necessarily new product entrants,” says Laura Ramos, vice president at research company Forrrester. “Vendors such as Verity, Autonomy and FAST are finding they have to compete on price to keep smaller companies – with credible technology demonstrations – off the consideration list. But these large vendors manage to sell their value and keep prices constant,” she adds.

IDSS has set up a number of reseller partnerships to give it access to a variety of vertical sectors and has so far made sales in the legal, insurance and travel sectors. Partners include Xerox and Amaze.