Mountain View, California-based Verity Inc has opened its first European sales and support office in London, and appointed distributors for its enhanced information retrieval system, Topic 2.0. The system runs under DEC’s VAX/VMS, and under Unix on Sun Microsystems, Pyramid Technology and MIPS Computer Systems Inc machines, and under MS-DOS and supports all major networks. Verity plans to release Mac/OS, OS/2 and X Window versions in the next six to 18 months. The product is written in an object orientated query language, as opposed to structured query language, and lists the database under topics and sub-topics which the user defines and prioritises. Verity claims that this enables the user to retrieve information both in conceptual terms and in order of importance, and that the hierarchy can be changed over time as the user requires. Topic 2.0 supports real time systems, has hypertext facilities which retrieve text and images, and a topic by example query builder, which essentially adds to the system’s intelligence. Verity Inc was established last year as a spin off from Advanced Decision Systems which supplies artificial intelligence systems to the US government. It has received a total of $9.4m in venture funding from a number of companies including US Venture Partners, Grotech Management, and Hambrecht & Quist. In the US it includes Chase Manhattan and the US Air Force in its client base and has now established a relationship with three European distributors – Sherington Software Ltd of Redbourn, Hertfordshire, Net Support BV in Holland, and Belgian BIM SA. The company is targeting Topic 2.0 at large commercial organisations and government bodies, particularly those that are in process of majoring on Unix, and pricing on the stand-alone personal computer version starts at UKP500.
