One of the major challenges facing modern companies is prompt search of documents in large data volumes. Organizing access to the data directly depends on technologies and programs that provide the speed and quality of processing information. At present there are a bunch of technologies providing phrasal search (Google, Hummingbird, Verity and others), but they, unlike our technology, do not solve the problem of searching information to a full extent.

For example, in a database comprising thousands of documents with news on all sorts of topics you need to find the information on buying and selling IT-companies. By using phrasal search and even by ideally selecting key phrases it is next to impossible to obtain a quick and adequate result. In order to get an acceptable outcome, you will have to go through document by document, select new key words and waste your time on studying irrelevant information. However, it would be much easier to find at least one relevant text on the required topic and click the button for searching similar documents...

1.2. SoftInform Search Technologies: Brief Description

SoftInform Search Technology is the technology for searching and processing information in text files, databases and information systems. It sports all the tools necessary for structuring disembodied information within in an enterprise and is an efficient solution to any problems of searching and consolidating information.

The main strength and difference of SoftInform Search Technology from the existing technologies and search systems is the SoftInform Company patent feature of searching documents with a content similar to query text.

The process of searching documents with a similar content involves the whole plurality of words used in the document with account of all word forms and synonyms. Once the query has been processed, the resulting list (with indication of relevance process) displays all documents that are most similar to the text fragment that had been used as the query. A 100% match indicates a duplicate document. A document with a lower match percentage, accordingly, is similar to the query text. It should be noted that the technology is intellectual enough to accurately determine the relevance of the required document as compared to the query regardless of changes (deleting or replacing part of the text) introduced into the query text.

The technology is perfectly compatible with the most widely used text file formats (txt, doc, rtf, pdf, htm, html), supporting and corretly processing all of them. However, in large companies where the information is usually stored in various information systems - CRM, archives, DBMS and so on - this will hardly suffice. The search similar technology copes with this challenge as well. It has a built-in ability to index fields from virtually all currently existing wide-spread systems (such as Access, MS SQL, Oracle, as well as any DBMS supporting SQL).

Besides, it is absolutely no effort to adapt the technology (by introducing minor corrections) to any other database or informational system, thanks to the concept of data sources. The data sources available for indexing by our application can be quite diverse and stored in different locations. In particular, at present the unique feature of searching similar documents has been integrated into the data management system Hummingbird.

Another significant advantage is that the technology is language-independent. All language-dependent components (morphology, dictionary of synonyms) can be connected as plug-ins by third-party companies.

1.3. Reliability of Technology and Its Basic Characteristics

The technology has been tested and now successfully used in a project on providing legal services by telephone "Alfa Lawyers", where the speed of searching information is of vital importance. Using the SoftInform Search Technology in this area has cut down the duration of phone conversations with customers (most of which are spent on searching the required legal information in the database) from 12-15 minutes to a record of 3-4 minutes.

By means of SoftInform Search Technology in just a fraction of a second you can find any document stored on the hard drive, in the database or in the information system of an enterprise. The high indexing speed (up to 6 Gb/hour of pure text), the small index size (15-25% of the real bulk of textual information), support of virtually all wide-spread text file formats (including .pdf and .html) and correct work with archives make SoftInform Search Technology an irreplaceable tool for searching information.

The comparison made with the major leaders in the present day search systems market leaders (Hummingbird, Verity, dtsearch, isys and others) has revealed that the speed of indexing and searching provided by the SoftInform technologies is twice as high as that of the market leaders (the tests focused on indexing speed and phrasal search).

1.4. Scalability of Technologies

At present we support scalability in several directions. Scalability is available for improving query processing speed and for increasing the volume of indexed data. The test revealed that using 10 computers instead of one raises the speed of system reaction by a factor of six.

1.5. Pool of Potential Clients for Using the SearchInform Technologies

Search systems serve as a nucleus basis for implementing large custom orders in the area of informational content and solve pressing issues of corporate clients that have appeared to be too tough for our competitors.

Basically any company running about 20 computers and actively working with textual information (whether in the form of a documents circulation system or documents for analysis stored on a disk) is our potential customer.

Introducing an informational system based on the SearchInform technology for large companies is of even greater importance. Such systems will enable them to switch to a new system of consolidating information to be searched without replacing the existing ones. In other words, SearchInform can be effortlessly installed over the existing systems and bring order into the realm of processing information.

2. Major Problems of Corporate Search Solved by Our Technology

2.1. Introduction

This section lists only 4 major problems solved by the SoftInform technology. It should be noted that not one of the existing technologies provides an efficient solution to any of them.

In the present day and age the main challenge is in delivering the information on our solution to long existing problems to the corporate client, because most of the clients simply do not know that their problems are easily solved with the help of the SoftInform technologies.

2.2. Problem 1. Prompt Search of Required Information

The conventional phrasal search implemented in all existing systems (both desktop and corporate solutions, as well as in the Internet) cope with their task, but the result is far from being satisfactory. One of the stumbling blocks is the time wasted on selecting key words and viewing useless documents displayed in the final lists of search results by a not quite correct query word (phrase). Searching documents with a similar content implemented in software based on SoftInform Search Technology cuts down the time spent on searching the required information to the minimum, providing accurate similarity results and displaying the list of documents in a convenient format.

In other words, we are not talking about a system that will be the fastest to react to the query (1 second instead of 5 seconds). We are saying that you will have to go over a much smaller amount of texts in order to find just the information you need.

For example, you need to find documents (in particular, news) on acquisitions by some IT companies of their competitors or prospective firms stored in your informational system or database. The conventional procedure looks as follows: you type in the phrase "acquiring company" and get a huge list of documents (though not necessarily exactly what you were looking for). Further on, you will find the document you were looking for in the 10th place. Having looked through this document you understand that it would be a good idea to try searching by phrases "companies merger" and "company acquisition", etc. As a result you end up thinking up more key phrases for searching and processing an enormous number of documents.

But when you use the SoftInform technology, as soon as you find the required document just click button "find documents with a similar content", and you will immediately see a relevant list of documents dedicated specifically to the required topic (with a similar content). Thus, instead of wasting several hours on searching the required information (browsing through the list of results and trying new key phrases) you can do it all within a matter of a few minutes.

2.3. Problem 2. Fuzziness of Informational Content

A database or an information system of an enterprise may contain documents from various sources, containing similar or identical information. The same text may appear under different headlines, with slight changes or amendments, which will make it quite difficult to find it. For example, a database may contain two or three similar documents virtually identical by content, but with different headlines and slight alterations in the text itself. And what about those situations when one expert will comment on document #1, while another expert comments on document #2, and so on! First of all, it means double work (why comment two or three times on the same document?). Second of all, further on (if, say, the comments are different) part of the processes or added information may never be seen again. SoftInform Search Technology provides a perfect solution to this problem: when an operator adds a new document to the database, by means of the similar search tool he can determine in an instant whether this document is new or whether it duplicates a file already existing in the database.

2.4. Problem 3. Generating Similarity Report on Document Already Existing in the Database

It is not uncommon to find duplicating documents in the informational database of an enterprise, provided from different sources or added by different people. As a rule, information is accumulated over years; therefore, in order to use all strengths of the SearchInform technology to the full extent, you have to rid your system of unnecessary duplicates. Practice shows that those unit managers who have done this job are stunned at the disorder that was deeply set in their organization of data processing.

In order to find duplicates and unnecessary "similar" files SoftInform Search Technology uses the similarity analysis report feature. By the way, the process is dozens of times shorter than conventional comparison. For example, comparing documents in an informational database that contains, say, several millions of documents will take about a month. But with the similarity analysis report feature not more than a day!

2.5. Problem 4. Consolidating Information from Various Sources

This problem deserves separate consideration. As the bulk of the surrounding information grows, it becomes more and more relevant. Large enterprises have to invest a lot of efforts into combining information from various systems into a single one. In addition to the high cost of developing a new solution, another major problem is deploying this solution at the enterprise. This, in its turn, may be quite painful for the management during a certain period upon deployment. Our technology and information systems developed on its basis are called to solve this problem absolutely painlessly for the enterprise.

SoftInform Search Technology is first and foremost a corporate tool for searching information in the local network of an enterprise (documents of virtually any format), information systems, DBMS, CRM and so on. A major strength of our solution is consolidation of information from various sources. SoftInform Search Technology incorporates a system of rubrication (a fast and convenient tool for categorizing any documents by the required topics) and automatic categorization of documents, namely, automatic distribution of new documents by the existing rubrics according to the general similarity principle. Such an approach to organizing and consolidating data allows structuring informational components of any large enterprise within the framework of one application. And you won't have to convert documents and data into some single format. All information available for indexing and further search can be categorized, structured and conveniently displayed.

Due to such an approach the SoftInform technologies are without any problems built over the already functioning informational systems of the enterprise and allow solving all issues on consolidating and searching information from various subsystems without having to re-organize the whole informational infrastructure of the enterprise.

This ability makes it quite easy to deploy the SoftInform technologies at virtually any large enterprise at minimal cost. Undoubtedly, the expenditure will be much greater than deploying box solutions from SoftInform, but will yield much more benefit for the enterprise. In essence it is a custom development of a new information system of an enterprise that will incorporate in it all of the already existing solutions.

3. Existing Solutions

There is no point in enumerating all solutions. It will be sufficient to name just a few of them as an example of solving any sort of challenge.

1) SearchInform. This is a search shell, including corporate search. This solution is a brilliant illustration of the potential of our technology.

2) Embedding the similar documents search feature into the documents circulation system Hummingbird DM. The official combined release from SoftInform and White Wind is scheduled for late summer.

3) YurCallCenter Project. The technology has been tested and is quite successfully used in a project on providing legal services by telephone "Alfa Lawyers" where the speed of searching information is of vital importance. Using the SoftInform Search Technology in this area has cut down the duration of phone conversations with customers (most of which are spent on searching the required legal information in the database) from 12-15 minutes to a record of 3-4 minutes.

4) Internet-search engine (the link can be provided for your personal use; the URL is not yet publicly available). This project is currently being prepared for illustrating the potential of our technologies in the Internet. You will find additional information on the Internet search engine in chapter "SearchInform in the Internet".

5) A number of solutions are currently under development. Some of them are described in chapter "SearchInform in the Internet".

4. What We Offer to Our Customers (or How We Work)

The SearchInform System is easily integrated into the informational structure of an enterprise connecting to various data sources and having a client-server architecture. Deploying SearchInform won't require changing the existing business processes and will allow the company to save the efforts it has invested into the already existing informational infrastructure. At the same time the system combines isolated corporate applications and data into a single information system, thus resulting in a more efficient solution to business tasks.

It goes without saying that the cost of deploying SearchInform is much higher than the cost of the box version, but it is this type of custom development tailored to specific purposes that allows employing all features originally provided in the technology and software delivered by SoftInform.

As soon as we receive an order for deploying a project based on SoftInform Search Technology, our experts will carry out an informational audit of the information database of your enterprise and draw up the range of functions for the future system with the view of maximum simplification of its development and deployment.

5. Summary

It goes without saying that, SoftInform Search Technology is not the only system of its kind. However, similar applications fall short of our solution in the speed of indexing, functionality and the abilities to consolidate and structure information. You will find a detailed description of our competitors in chapter "SearchInform Competitors".

As regards the potential market for deployment, our solutions are in great demand at about any company. A detailed description of the potential market is laid out in chapter "Segmentation and Market Analysis".

Press Center

January 10, 2007.
SearchInform Technologies Inc. introduces a new version of SearchInform, a program of full text search and search for documents with similar content, featuring new interface settings as well as an enhanced functionality. Detailed...

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December 05, 2006
IRP Technology, a large-scale system integrator and SearchInform Technologies, a developer of corporate search solutions, announce a partnership agreement, based on which IRP Technology receives the right to use SearchInform search technologies in any of its projects.
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