Content Access Tools

Content access tools create access to unstructured information in a variety of formats. This group of software tools includes search engines, question-answering applications, browsing tools such as directories, visualization tools for navigation through a collection of unstructured information, filtering and alerting tools to personalize and automate the flow of information specifically needed by a user, text mining, and categorization/metadata tagging tools. Software in this market provides the following functionality for unstructured information or content:

• Search engines
• Indexing tools to build inverted indexes to text and/or XML or relational databases
• Navigation and directories
• Analysis (includes text mining and content visualization tools)

The following are the major submarkets and representative vendors for the content access tools market:

• Search engines, platforms, and applications: Autonomy, Fast Search and Transfer, Endeca, Google, IBM, and Vivisimo
• Text mining and text analytics: ClearForest, Insightful, Inxight, Attensity, SAS, and SPSS
• Browsing and guided navigation: Endeca and Siderean
• Categorizers: NSTein, Recommind, Stratify, and Vivisimo
• Question answering: IBM/iPhrase, Fast Search and Transfer, and InQuira
• Language analyzers: Basis Technologies and Inxight