Hummingbird Communications Inc, the Canadian business intelligence software vendor, yesterday launched its Enterprise Information Portal, with which users can access, edit and categorize data from corporate sites and the internet. Hummingbird says that EIP is not just a window to see information, but a site in which users can work collaboratively in document creation.
The company is also developing neural networking technology that obtains relevant documents automatically from web and internal company data sources according to users’ roles. This will be added within the next six months. Hummingbird will release a renamed EIP on December 15 to selected customers and on general availability in January.
The offering combines Hummingbird’s Genio extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) tool, knowledge management tools gained with the acquisition of PC Docs earlier this year (CI No 3,661) and its Hummingbird Business Intelligence (BI) suite, which can analyze both structured and unstructured data repositories. Prices are thought to be in the $150,000 to $350,000 range.
EIP includes Enterprise Table of Contents (ETOC) software which automatically categorizes documents either inside or outside the enterprise, enabling corporate users to access the metadata from databases as with traditional company information. EIP runs on Windows NT and has connectivity with Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and Sybase databases.
Hummingbird, having integrated the PC Docs software in under six months, is now ready to take its technology into battle with IBM Corp. Hummingbird says it isn’t daunted by the size of the competition. European Evangelist Kobi Korsah says that IBM doesn’t have its own reporting tool and asserts that Hummingbird’s pedigree in the knowledge management sector makes IBM’s Lotus look embryonic. He also says that Hummingbird’s developing neural networking software is superior to anything IBM has to offer. This technology will probably be added to EIP within six months, Korsah says.
Beneath the bold front, Hummingbird is desperately trying to sort out partnerships that will give it market weight. In September, then CEO Jim Tobin said Hummingbird would sign with either Sun, Oracle or Microsoft (CI No 3,750). Korsah gave more details, revealing that one of the four is a major ERP player and another is a Big Five consultancy. All four will be announced in the next 60 days.
Hummingbird already has connections with Microsoft. Microsoft’s browser Internet Explorer, for example, uses Hummingbird connectivity technology. And the Redmond firm is also a customer of Hummingbird, using its Docs Open document management tool for its marketing.
Hummingbird is also giving itself a minor facelift in anticipation of making its name in portals. It will standardize its product names, taking out references to PC Docs, and also change its logo from a detailed picture of a Hummingbird to a more stylized representation.
