The Fight Against InfoglutThe Fight Against Infoglut

However, a lot of this is still at the vision stage, since Oracle is working to get all of its acquired software working together using its Fusion Web services. That means future Fusion-based versions of PeopleSoft and Stellent will conceivably plug into each other, but right now that requires integration work.

One area Oracle has been working on is its database technology. It's put a lot of work into building the ability to query its database using natural language processing, also called semantics. Expect more semantics features in the release of Oracle Database 11G this summer, Shimp says.

COST CONSCIOUSNESS

Microsoft's big play in information management is its newly released SharePoint Server 2007. While its predecessor, SharePoint Portal 2003, was billed as collaboration software, the new version includes such capabilities as enterprise search, content management, and business intelligence. At Microsoft's Convergence conference in San Diego last month, CEO Steve Ballmer called SharePoint 2007 "the definitive OS or platform for the middle tier."

What Ballmer meant, says Tom Rizzo, Microsoft's director of SharePoint, is that the server can be the main broker between a user's requests for information on the desktop and the networked data sources holding that information, including unstructured content, databases, other vendors' ERP and CRM applications, as well as Microsoft's own Dynamics line of enterprise apps. "You can unlock these silos of information, and SharePoint is the breakthrough," Rizzo says. Analysis tools are available to let users, for example, trend sales growth for numbers SharePoint pulls out of an e-mail or an ERP app.

As usual, Microsoft's best argument centers on cost. Companies don't need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an information management stack, such as business intelligence tools, a content management server, and data integration software, all of which may come from different vendors and may not work together well. "There are lots of pure-play vendors who do many pieces," Rizzo says. "Think of SharePoint as the unifying glue for all these productivity things you want to do within a company." Prices for SharePoint Server 2007 will vary depending on modules selected, but a version offering just enterprise search is priced at $58,000.

Not everyone is convinced. Defense contractor BAE Systems does enterprise search using Autonomy's Idol Server, which fetches information from myriad data sources, including SharePoint 2003 servers. Even with the upgrade to SharePoint Server, BAE knowledge engineer Scott Petri thinks it's too proprietary to do the work of an enterprise search engine. "Autonomy's search engine provides better access to multiple repositories," he says. "We needed something that did a job better and covered more repositories than what SharePoint could offer."

Enterprise search is an important--and underrated--element in information management. BAE Systems has had the Autonomy technology for about 18 months, Petri says, and employees throughout the company use it to search Microsoft Office and PDF files, RSS feeds, HTML pages, and shared files residing on networks. Petri says he's also impressed with Autonomy's security, including user authentication and encryption.

The only real challenge, Petri says, has been getting employees to use Autonomy as a conceptual search engine--and not like they use Google, mainly focused on a word or two. The more you tell the system, he says, the better your results will be.

Cultural issues can't be underestimated in a company's information management strategy. The biggest danger may be in the form of paralysis when the glut gets overwhelming, says Stuart Madnick, a professor of IT at MIT. "It's likely some execs are going to want to shut it off and make it go away," he says. "That causes missed opportunities."

The opportunities will go away, but the increasing amount of digital information won't.

Illustration by Yuan Lee

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