Printer Friendly Version

AIIM 2003, the showcase of the document and content management world, returned to New York's Javits Center this week amidst an environment that could not be worse for trade shows in general. If it wasn't the lackluster economy, reluctance about airline travel, or security in general (between terrorism and the war) that kept you away, perhaps it was the rare April snowstorm that made travel in the New York area messy.

According to some exhibitors, Monday's attendance was disappointing, but many were hoping the weather was to blame. I attended on Tuesday, the middle day of the expo with the longest expo hours. According to the event's PR people, the combination of AIIM and the On Demand show, which was co-located at the Javits Center, had 27,200 registered attendees (does not include exhibitors and press) and 438 exhibitors.

I booked six meetings with companies that cater to different parts of the information management scene. Needless to say, there were a number of announcements made at the show, and I can't begin to touch on all of them. Here's a look at six companies, presented in the order I met with them.

Convera

On April 30, Vienna, Va.-based Convera will release RetrievalWare 8, the latest version of its enterprise search and categorization product. Search may not sound like a particularly sexy topic, but RetrievalWare goes beyond the Google-type Web search most of us think of when it comes to search.

RetrievalWare indexes and searches just about any type of file from anywhere. The more than 200 file types range from HTML, XML, and images to audio and video. The files can be found in multiple repositories from document and content management systems and relational databases.

Convera uses context searching, which examines not just the term you are searching for, but how it is used, as well as pattern searching that can identify, for example, an error inserted into a document when it was scanned. Those are the keys to RetrivelWare's accurate search, which is used by more than 800 customers, including about 80 in government intelligence and law enforcement. As Convera's Vice President for Product Management and Marketing, Mushtaq Khan, explained, a bad search by such agencies could make headlines worldwide.

New in Version 8 are Dynamic Classification, which allows users to organize content in a directory structure that looks similar to the directories used on Web portals like Yahoo! but allows users to cross-reference categories, as well as support for J2EE, an enhanced GUI, and more language and taxonomy options.

Languages and taxonomies are delivered by what Convera calls "cartridges." The taxonomies are unique to 20 specific industries, and provide a library of industry-specific terms in fields such as Chemistry, Electronics, Law, Geography, and Telecommunications.

RetrievalWare starts in the $30,000 to $50,000 range, with an average selling price of around $75,000.

Convera also announced a partership with Intelliseek at AIIM. Convera will offer Intelliseek's Enterprise Search Server as an optional component to RetrievalWare, while Intelliseek will resell RetrievalWare.

Percussion Software

Stoneham, Mass.-based Percussion Software was the enterprise content management (ECM) vendor that Intranet Journal sat down with at AIIM. Percussion launched a pretty agressive marketing campaign at AIIM this year, featuring a giveaway contest, a new slogan, and that trade show relic that reminds us all of more vibrant times — a free toy. (In this case, it's a stress-relief ball on a string. Call it yo-yo enabled.)

AIIM was the coming out party for Rhythmyx 5, a major new release of Percussion's content management system that was released on March 31. With version 5, Rhythmyx goes from a Web content management system to a full enterprise content management system (though it is still available as a Web CM product).

There are three aspects of Rhythmyx that Percussion says make it stand out in the very crowded ECM field that, frankly, lacks much that stands out. First up is what Percussion calls De-Coupled Delivery, which is central to Percussion's "Stop Runaway CMS Licenses" campaign. The architecture of Rhythymx separates content management from the delivery platforms. Because of this, a new CMS server doesn't have to be coupled to each new delivery platform, thus sparing customers from multiple license fees and proprietary API coding.

Intelligent Relationships allow users to proactively manage content dependencies and connections. The goal is easier management of content items down to the sub-document level. Intelligent Relationships check for broken links in Web content, eliminates unnecessary copies, and manages the relationship between copies.

The third aspect of Rhythmyx that gets a lot of attention is Active Assembly, a GUI on steroids. Active Assembly is actually a graphical layout tool that allows you to drag and drop content to create new documents or Web pages out of existing content.

Rythymx 5 is available for Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Solaris. As a Web CMS, the price averages about $150,000. The ECM package, which was inspired by Rhythmyx customers who were using their Rhythmyx Web CMS as an ECM system anyway, costs around $250,000 on average. Both products have the same ECM foundation so users can easily upgrade from Web to enterprise.

Access Sciences

If you hear the term "document management" and start thinking about costly systems that aren't installed or used properly or to the best of their ability, then Access Sciences, based in Bellaire, Texas, can relate.

If you hear the term "document management" and think "Sounds good, but I'm a small to medium-sized business and can't afford it," then Access Sciences wants to talk to you.

Access Sciences (the name is new) has been a consultancy focused on document and records management since 1985. Many of its clients are in the energy business, given its location near Houston, which also explains why it has an office in Anchorage, Alaska.

Fed up with the lack of document management solutions for small- to medium-sized businesses, Access Sciences coupled Tower Software's Trim Context ECM suite with a new end-user interface called Document Explorer. The end result is called Access Sciences Express.

The document management functionality is to be expected: records management, scanning and indexing software, workflow, and version tracking are all there. The Document Explorer is a different interface. It looks like a typical Windows explorer, but rather than browser-based, Document Explorer is an executable that resides on the desktop and runs on Windows. It uses TCP/IP connections like a browser to connect to the Trim repository, but because it's not a browser there is no ActiveX and related security to worry about.

Access Sciences says installation takes a day, and less than a week of training and consulting is needed. The cost (install and training included) is $24,870.

Sun Microsystems, Information Management Research and iManage, on page 2