IBM: Open Source Search

Simple but powerful keyword searches have revolutionised the way
internet users locate and retrieve information. The advertising world got
completely transformed by this concept. But IBM is looking to bring in
another path-breaking method that office workers may use to sift
through the piles of data stored inside organisations.

IBM plans to give away key corporate data search technologies that use
concepts and facts instead of simpler keywords. Via an open source
model, IBM plans to openly offer other software developers its
Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA), a
technology that can analyse text within documents and other media to
understand latent meanings, relationships and facts. Some 15 companies
plan to use UIMA as a framework for search and text analysis of
unstructured data, IBM said.

IBM is also offering its webSphere OmniFind software for helping users
search unstructured data in a variety of formats or languages, be they
located in databases, email files, audio recordings, pictures or video
images. UIMA will allow many different suppliers of software used in
knowledge management, search, business intelligence and text analytics
to work with one another.

A decade ago many database developers said their database management
systems were close to solving the unstructured data issue. Yet some 85%
of corporate data still sits in unstructured form outside of databases.

UIMA technology is expected to be made available through open-source
software site SourceForge by the end of 2005. The UIMA framework can
currently be downloaded free of charge from IBM AlphaWorks at www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/uima/.