CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 27, 2006 – Endeca, a next-generation search and information access company, today introduced the Endeca Information Access Platform (IAP) – a new platform built specifically to address an emerging market that is poised to fundamentally change the way people access and interact with information. The platform is designed to help people find, analyze and understand information in ways not possible with search engine, database and business intelligence solutions. Powered by Endeca's MDEX Engine™ technology, it fuses the ease of search and browsing with the analytical capabilities of business intelligence, bringing Endeca's trademark Guided Navigation® user experience to new classes of applications. As a result, organizations can increase revenue, decrease costs and streamline operations by helping their customers, employees and partners answer high-value questions with unprecedented ease and confidence.
The Endeca Information Access Platform aids information-based problem solving across a wide variety of business processes, including eCommerce, marketing campaign analysis, product design and parts reuse, knowledge management, customer service, and more. To meet highly specific industry and application requirements, Endeca offers a range of Market Solutions, each designed to accelerate time-to-market and maximize return on investment. These solutions combine the benefits of the platform with unique application modules and deep market and application-specific services expertise. In a related announcement, Endeca today unveiled a new, expanded line of these solutions.
"In the era of Google, search engines have become synonymous with the act of 'searching' for information. But people are much more flexible and inventive than the simple search box gives them credit for. Comparing, contrasting, making trade-offs, even performing ad hoc analysis are all part of information-seeking behavior. Past technologies artificially constrained these skills," said Steve Papa, founder and chairman of Endeca. "Endeca is the first company to offer a single, unified approach to these complementary activities and the business processes they support. The Endeca Information Access Platform represents the next step in our vision to bring this approach to virtually every activity where high-value information supports decision making."
"The markets for content and data access technologies – once clearly distinct camps – are rapidly converging. And with good reason, since they all seek to solve the same problem — finding and understanding information across the enterprise," said Sue Feldman, VP for Content Technologies at IDC. "We expect this new opportunity and market to reach into multiple billions of dollars by the end of the decade, far exceeding today's $900 million enterprise search market. Endeca's new approach positions them well to capitalize on the converged markets."
As evidence of this growing trend, Endeca customers have begun using Endeca solutions across their enterprise to address problems that would have previously required multiple, disparate technologies to support -- or would have been impossible to solve. For example, IBM, which first purchased an Endeca solution in 2003 to support an eCommerce application, has since deployed seven applications of Endeca, ranging from customer-facing support applications to performance management dashboards to a radical human capital management application that IBM has used to improve project staffing for its Business Consulting arm – reducing the time required to staff projects from weeks to days. Following the success of an Endeca-powered equity derivatives navigator, global financial institution ABN AMRO recently purchased Endeca for the bank's 400 corporate intranets to support regulatory compliance initiatives. Indigo Books & Music, Canada's largest book retailer, uses Endeca to power both its online storefront (http://chapters.indigo.ca) and its in-store, self-service kiosks. Likewise, World Book, who currently uses Endeca to help customers access the encyclopedia company's wealth of rich content and articles, has plans to use Endeca to power its online storefront.
"The benefits that Endeca delivers for our online encyclopedia
application – both to end-users and to our IT staff – can be
realized across a wide array of applications," said Tim Hardy,
chief technology officer at World Book. "It allows us to do things
that would be impossible with traditional search approaches."
More about the Endeca IAP
The Endeca IAP is distinguished from other technologies in several key ways:
For more information on the Endeca Information Access Platform and its capabilities, please see: Endeca Technical Datasheet.
About Endeca
Endeca is a next-generation search and information access company. Combining patented intellectual property, breakthrough science and a deep focus on user experience, the Endeca Information Access Platform helps people find, analyze and understand information in ways never before possible. Leading global organizations like ABN AMRO, Bank of America, Boeing, Costco, Cox Newspapers, The (US) Defense Intelligence Agency, The Home Depot, Hyatt, IBM, John Deere, Lehman Brothers, The Library of Congress, Texas Instruments, and Walmart.com rely on Endeca to power business-critical applications that increase revenue, reduce costs and streamline operations.
Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, Endeca is a private company with
operations in North America, Europe and Asia. For more information:
www.endeca.com or info@endeca.com.