IBM targets unstructured data

IBM has unveiled a category of applications, called Content Analytics, designed to help employees more easily analyse both structured and unstructured data, such as e-mail and blogs, as well as applications for customised sales, talent management, and procurement analytics, reports InformationWeek.

The Content Analytics apps were born from the work of IBM's research and development group and of a team from FileNet, a document-management vendor IBM acquired for $1.2 billion in 2006, says Rob Ashe, GM of analytics and performance management at IBM.

The apps are intended to let companies combine business intelligence gleaned from transactions running in internal systems, with unstructured data coming from the outside, such as customer e-mails, customer comments on blogs, or market-trend reports prepared by outside organisations.

Ingram Micro has rolled out business development offerings for its VentureTech Network (VTN) community, including programmes to help member-to-member communication, harvest sales data, and reduce the complexity of vendor rebates, states Channel Web.

The new programmes, which are now in pilot-testing but expected to be ready early next year, were unveiled at the distributor's 2009 VTN Fall Invitational conference, being held in Denver.

The VTN Rebate Tracker programme is aimed at helping VTN members take better advantage of vendors' rebate and discount programmes, said John Fago, senior director of channel marketing in North America.

Enterprise search and retrieval firm Autonomy has introduced an archiving tool pitched at firms looking to make sense of archived material regardless of its location, says Computing.co.uk.

Autonomy Arcpliance is based on a number of existing systems, and uses the firm's Intelligent Data Operating Layer to ensure the integrity of data, and remove the risk of de-duplication and formatting errors. Autonomy says this would help companies to achieve compliance requirements, and reduce the time associated with backups, administration, software upgrades and technical reports.

"With over a decade of experience in tackling some of the world's most complex archiving challenges, there is not a scenario, data type or business case that we have not successfully covered," says Mike Sullivan, chief executive at Autonomy Zantaz.