What is the difference between AMI Enterprise Discovery and traditional internet search engines ?

Jacqueline Reigner: Traditional internet search engines* make it possible to search for  information associated with key words. They benefit from a lot of public use and strong brand images but are also dependent on commercial activity in the form of advertising. AMI Enterprise Discovery is an enterprise search solution that not only provides powerful functionality for searching for information but also comprehensive tools for analysing the results.


Which is the technological base of a search system ?

Jacqueline Reigner: Traditional search engines offer a “black box” solution, positioned on a corporate network, without any real indication as to their functional ability or the breadth of content they might reference. Is information about the company and the search logs only stored on the “black box” or is there a possibility they may be transferred elsewhere via someone else’s server? Its hard to provide any guarantee’s about confidentiality! In contrast, AMI Enterprise Discovery is an application installed internally on one of the company servers and not limited by volume size or source connection. Confidentiality is assured and under the control of the company


How is the search for information made ?

Jacqueline Reigner: Traditional search engines scan for words, character strings, a maximum of 10 according to a Boolean algorithm. A suggestion is made in the event of typing error. Using AMI Enterprise Discovery its possible to search using natural language with broad system tolerance for typing errors and linguistic expression. A set of algorithms analyses the question and generates a graph of assumptions which represent many variations of the initial request with the objective of covering the subject in as much detail as possible. A patented “calculation of document signature” technology ensures a far higher level of relevance in the results.


Is it necessary to index the data source ?

Jacqueline Reigner: Yes, traditional search engines use indexed data. AMI Enterprise Discovery allows two possibilities: to index the data applying their Document Signature technology or connect to information sources which in turn have their own search interface. This connection is carried out using a generic connector, or a custom script, which emulates the interrogation of a specific information source. The addition of a new source to the search system is done simply by creating an additional script. In this way it is possible to build a federated search across an entire range of sources.


And what about the search results ?

Jacqueline Reigner: Traditional internet search engines present  simple list classified with an extract of the first lines of text whereas AMI Enterprise Discovery presents a full reconciliation of the results posted according to the order of relevance and enriched by a summary of the three or four most significant sentences. Duplicates are highlighted and, moreover, via its clusterisation technology it automatically suggests linked topics and “more like this” to further increase the value of the results in terms of covering a subject as comprehensively as possible.
 

* Internet Search Engines like Yahoo, Google, MSN, etc