Hot debuts at KMExpo

Event to host launch of several KM products

Companies looking for the technology they need to get their knowledge management initiatives rolling will find several useful debuts on the KMExpo show floor. Whether the task is searching across the enterprise, making intelligent and link-updating additions to massive technical documents or combining document management, content management and collaboration into one system, Chicago's McCormick Place will have it Oct. 13 to 15.

Unified search across the enterpriseEverybody has been talking about it, but it appears that Dataware Technologies (www.dataware.com, #2112) will deliver at KMExpo the ability to make one query that will cross all data sources in an enterprise.

Say for example, an organization has information stored in Lotus Notes (www.lotus.com), a corporate intranet and document management repositories-each one requires a different query. Or perhaps a piece of information they seek can be found on the Web through one of its many search engines.

The problem, according to Steve Offsey, director of knowledge management products, is that an employee wanting to search them all would have to be familiar with the intricacies of each search tool and spend the time querying them all. Then that employee would need to take the results of each query and evaluate them separately.

Not so with the Dataware II Knowledge Query Server. One query covers all HTTP-compatible engines. Results are presented as one list with features including merged relevancy rankings and clustering based on topic.

"It's sort of a first step in solving the access problem," said Offsey.

The product will be available as part of the Dataware II Knowledge Management Suite or as a standalone tool. Regarding the latter, Offsey said, "There are organizations that are interested in knowledge management, but aren't really there yet. But they have a quick IT need that this solves."

Intelligent alteration

A 9,000-word technical report contains lots of information, and companies like Enigma (www.enigmainc.com, #1919) have been making that document electronic and searchable for some time. But with Enigma's new Xtend for Knowledge Management, users will be able to alter that electronic document intelligently, meaning one change will make all links update.

Randy Clark, Enigma's VP of marketing, illustrated Xtend's usefulness with a manufacturing example. A manufacturer includes a massive technical document with each product it sends. In that technical document, the purchasing company can find all data, including instructions for use and repair. For example, it may give a maintenance procedure of 1-2-3. However, the purchasing company may require its employees to add maintenance step 4 to that process. Or to maintain the product, the manufacturer's document might say to use only a brand-name part, but the purchasing company prefers to use a less expensive part.

With current electronic publishing systems, making those additions to the original document would be prohibitive, according to Clark, but the usefulness of adding information learned from specific experiences is invaluable.

Xtend allows the purchasing company in our example to add its comments to the necessary section and then automatically updates all items within that document, such as hyperlinks and the table of contents.

"Xtend builds on Enigma's strategy of providing intelligent access and use of information from document repositories across organizations," said Clark. "It also builds on our strategy of using standard document exchange formats such as RTF, SGML and XML to make our application content reusable and customizable from the desktop."

Information tool rides "wave" to U.S.Hyperwave Information Management (www.hyperwave.com, #916), a European company making its U.S. debut with an updated version of its product, will introduce Hyperwave Information Server 4.0 at KMExpo.

The object-oriented tool was built from the Web-unlike most document management systems that Web-enabled as an afterthought, according to Peter Boot, Hyperwave CEO. Hyperwave Information Server goes beyond traditional DM because it brings in collaboration and content management.

Users (assigned access rights) can contribute, edit, share, organize and distribute information to a corporate intranet without programming knowledge. Links in the system are automatically updated, ensuring up-to-date information. The server uses the Verity (www.verity.com) search engine, although it can be customized to work with others, and incorporates a "notes and annotations" feature.

"Organizations need a combination of document management, search and collaborative features," said Boot. His company aims to deliver it all in one package.