May 1997, Volume 14, No. 5
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May 1997, Volume 14, No. 5
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The driving force behind the acquisitions seems to be the Internet. Mainstream software companies — both large and small — have caught on to the competitive advantage intelligent systems provide, particularly in helping navigate the largely uncharted Web waters.
On one hand, these acquisitions point to the faith corporate
America now has in AI technologies. On the other hand, though, as
these AI companies disappear into new identities, there's a small
touch of poignancy in bidding farewell to some AI pioneers.
MultiLogic acquires Exsys
Let's start with one of the old-guard expert system vendors, i.e.,
Exsys (Albuquerque, N.M.), a company that was founded way back in
1983, virtually at the dawn of the artificial intelligence industry.
Exsys has been acquired by MultiLogic (St. Paul, Minn.;
http://www.multilogic.com), a
recently launched provider of Internet/intranet applications of
expert systems to automate routine tasks. The combined company will
operate under the MultiLogic name.
The two companies have been working together under a collaborative product development partnership since mid-1996 to develop business applications available on the World Wide Web that facilitate decision making using expert systems technology. The new company plans to expand its operations in both the Minnesota and New Mexico locations to meet its expanded business plan.
Dustin Huntington, Exsys' founder, will become MultiLogic's chief technology officer. Huntington developed the Exsys expert system, one of the industry's oldest and most used PC-based expert system tool sets.
"Since the inception of MultiLogic in 1996, we planned to acquire
a company that would give us the technology and customer base we need
to bring our solutions to the mass business market," said David
Deetz, MultiLogic's CEO. The company plans to use expert systems to
facilitate information analysis and decision making in everyday
business situations. "We believe expert systems are to the
decision-making process what networks and databases have been to the
information-gathering process," Deetz said.
Inso takes Quest to a new "Level"
Another long-time expert system tool vendor — Level\5 Research
(Melbourne, Fla.) — has been acquired by Inso (Boston, Mass.;
http://www.inso.com), marking the
second time Level\5 has passed into different hands. The company had
been acquired by Information Builders Inc. (IBI) (New York) back in
1987, and Inso paid IBI $5 million in cash for Level\5.
Level\5 is a developer of software and systems that apply intelligent technologies to data access management. The company's main product these days, Quest, is a desktop data search and discovery tool for non-data analysts. Applying fuzzy logic and concept searching techniques, Quest combines advanced query and reporting to automatically compare, contrast, rate, rank and score ODBC-enabled databases. Level\5's SmartMode and SiteAnalyzer products will remain with IBI.
Inso is a provider of multi-lingual software products to create, access, and distribute electronic information in environments ranging from computer desktops to the Internet. Its products address the proofing, searching and electronic publishing markets.
According to Steven Vana- Paxhia, Inso's president and CEO, Level\5 was acquired as part of a strategy to build products for the information lifecycle — information creation, distribution and access. "Level\5 will contribute to the development of knowledge management applications which are on target for Inso's information access business," he said.
Quest enables non-data analysts to effectively access structured databases to discover and evaluate relationships within the data. "Quest's competency with structured databases will be particularly powerful in combination with Inso search tools for unstructured information," Vana-Paxhia said. "As an example, Quest in combination with Inso components could yield an application to facilitate fact extraction from stock market information and then identify investments that are most similar to the last big winner."
With the acquisition, Level\5's 20 employees will join Inso to
form the core of a new Inso technical development center in
Melbourne, Fla. Karl Seiler, formerly Level\5's president, has been
named vice president and general manager of the new development
center.
Microsoft gobbles up Dimension X
Meanwhile, in its never-ending acquisition fury, software giant
Microsoft (Redmond, Wash.;
http://www.microsoft.com) has
picked up Dimension X (San Francisco), a provider of Java-based
platforms and tools for virtual reality content creation. Microsoft
will gain the technology, vision and talent necessary to compete in
the 3-D VR marketplace, while Dimension X will receive worldwide
distribution of its products.
During its tenure, Dimension X created Liquid Reality, a Java/VRML
implementation; Liquid Motion Pro, a Java application; and Liquid
Reality Composer, a 3-D multimedia authoring environment to integrate
the content creation and playback window. The company was an alpha
site in 1994 for the initial release of Java, previously known as
LiveOak. Dimension X worked closely with both Sun and Microsoft on
key Java products and initiatives.
Neural Applications acquires Ethos
Finally, reversing the trend we've seen in the other transactions,
Neural Applications (Coralville, Iowa;
http://www.neural.com), a
supplier of neural network-based solutions, has itself acquired an
Internet company — Ethos (San Francisco), developer of the
Internet financial broadcasting service, InvestorsEdge. The new
company will operate under the Neural Applications name, with
InvestorsEdge retaining its on-line moniker
(http://www.investorsedge.com).
Neural Applications will now offer intelligent Web-based applications designed to simplify and enhance stock market analysis, electronic securities trading, user tracking, advertising rotation systems, and other data mining applications.
InvestorsEdge will now act as a distribution network to license Java applications, such as NetProphet, a Web-based cross-platform portfolio management tool. InvestorsEdge will continue to expand its online financial service by adding new content, features and data mining functions.
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