IBM to release UIMA search platform

Big Blue plans are Unstructured Information Management Architecture open to companies. Using this technology, large amounts of data can be searched, but not in the traditional way with keywords that we know from Google and co. It is expected that the UIMA software will be made open-source through SourceForge by the end of this year. In particular, this technology should make it easier for companies to search e-mails, text files and other unstructured data and then make connections between them. For example, on the basis of this technology, a system has been developed that monitors the Internet and scans for user experiences of certain products, in order to subsequently detect complaints and to detect any quality problems early with the aid of data on the internal company network.

More than 15 companies, including ClearForest, Cognos, iPhrase, SAS and Factiva, have already indicated that they support the UIMA framework for search and text analysis. Although database developer Informix argued about a decade ago that the point at which unstructured data could be easily interpreted and searched was close, analysts estimate that today some 85 percent of business data is still stored unsorted outside databases.