[Editor's note: Quotes have been translated from German.]

German company Ontoprise GmbH has filed for bankruptcy. According to the German Business publication, econo, “The software specialist Ontoprise is in trouble. The company has asked for bankruptcy due to insolvency.”  The firm Schultze & Braun has told the district court in Karlsruhe that lawyer Holger Blümle has been appointed provisional liquidator.

In an official release by Schultze & Braun, Blümle states, “With their innovative solutions, Ontoprise has developed a very good market position. Since the products are used both directly and indirectly in other programs, I am confident that the company can be rehabilitated…Initial discussions with potential investors are already actively being pursued.”

Ontoprise was founded in 1999 as a spin off from the research environment at the University of Karlsruhe. The software company specializes in knowledge management applications of Semantic Technologies.

SemTechBiz is Less Than 3 Weeks Away

The Semantic Tech & Business Conference (SemTechBiz) is coming to San Francisco on June 3-7! Join us for case studies, innovative panels, tutorials, and keynotes that will provide you with practical advice, hands-on guidance, and breakthrough approaches to solving business problems with semantic technology. Passes go up $200 at the door. Sign up now and save !

Cambridge Semantics’ new Competitive Intelligence Solution has been named Best in Show at the 2012 BioIT World Conference. The company reports, “Based on the flagship Anzo Software Suite, the Cambridge Semantics Competitive Intelligence Solution was recognized for its unique approach to helping biopharma companies handle their diverse and ever-changing information needs.” Read more

We caught up with Bernie Spang, IBM’s Director, Strategy and Marketing, Database Software and Systems, to discuss the latest release of its enterprise data products DB2 and InfoSphere. Version 10 of both products have just been released. DB2 is used by thousands of organizations worldwide and comes in flavors ranging from a free version that maxes out at 2GB storage to systems that support large enterprises (Coca-Cola was an early adopter of DB2 version 10, and is already reporting cost-savings of over $1 Million).

The latest version of DB2 is the first in four years and represents a significant release, according to Spang, “This is a culmination of four years of effort by hundreds of engineers in IBM Research and Software Development Labs around the world; we also had more than 100 clients and over 200 business partners involved in the ‘early access program’ to help deliver this software. With the fundamental goal of delivering faster, easier, lower-cost data management.”

The early testing is showing positive results, with customers reporting “up to 10x faster data warehouse queries; freeing up to 90% of storage space using compression; and 98% code compatibility with Oracle Database, which makes it easier to migrate from Oracle to IBM software without changing data or retraining staff.”

For our readers, though, one of the more intriguing new features of DB2 is its built-in support for RDF. While semantics is not new to IBM — IBM Watson has gained particular fame — the appearance of RDF support in such a widely used, stable, enterprise database system is exciting.
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SemanticWeb.com and parent company WebMediaBrands recently announced that a competition will be held at the upcoming Semantic Technology and Business Conference (SemTechBiz) in San Francisco to select the “Top Semantic Technology Start-Up.” The contest begins with an online application process. Out of that pool of applicants, ten companies will be selected to compete in person and on stage at SemTechBiz San Francisco. There is no charge to apply. The ten finalist companies will need to register one individual, but for already registered attendees, there is no additional fee.

Requirements

SemanticWeb.com is currently accepting entrants from now until April 23, 2012. Companies encouraged to apply are those who meet the following conditions:

1. have a demonstrable product (at least in “beta” stage) in the SemTech and or SemWeb space
2. have received no more than a Series A round of financing

Companies can be located anywhere but must have the financial means to attend SemTech 2012. Ten Finalist companies will be selected to compete in a “Pitch Slam” before a panel of expert judges at the Conference. These finalists will be listed in an article at SemanticWeb.com.

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In 2005, I started learning about the so-called Semantic Web. It wasn’t till 2008, the same year I started my PhD, that I finally understood what the Semantic Web was really about. At the time, I made a $1000 bet with 3 college buddies that the Semantic Web would be mainstream by the time I finished my PhD. I know I’m going to win! In this post, I will argue why.

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SemanticWeb.com and parent company WebMediaBrands are pleased to announce that a competition will be held at the upcoming Semantic Technology and Business Conference (SemTechBiz) in San Francisco. The contest begins with an online application process. Out of that pool of applicants, ten companies will be selected to compete in person and on stage at SemTechBiz San Francisco. At the conference, a single winner will be awarded the prize as “Top Semantic Technology Start-Up.”

Dramatic growth in semantics-based products and applications released over the past years is on the rise. Semantic technologies are no longer a discovery of the future. Organizations such as Google, Yahoo!, LinkedIn, The New York Times, Facebook, Apple, Oracle, IBM, the Library of Congress, Amdocs, Volkwagen & the BBC use them today.

Requirements

SemanticWeb.com is currently accepting entrants from now until April 23, 2012. Companies encouraged to apply are those who meet the following conditions:

1. have a demonstrable product (at least in “beta” stage) in the SemTech and or SemWeb space
2. have received no more than a Series A round of financing

Companies can be located anywhere but must have the financial means to attend SemTech 2012.  Ten Finalist companies will be selected to compete in a “Pitch Slam” before a panel of expert judges at the Conference. These finalists will be listed in an article at SemanticWeb.com.

Read more

On Wednesday, February 28, 2012, enterprise search company, SalsaDev, and CMS platform Magnolia-CMS will broadcast a live Webinar (Registration required) discussing how SalsaDev adds semantic capability to the Magnolia CMS. According to the organizers, “Software that understands content makes a CMS significantly more valuable. Due to automated reasoning, no more manual work will be needed, for example by content authors to display related content. Website visitors will benefit from context-aware search that yields the best results from vast amounts of content. By combining Magnolia CMS with salsaDev’s technology, users save time and maximize the value of content.”

Participants will learn:

• How to quickly install and configure the searchBox solution for Magnolia CMS
• How to customize the searchBox integration and ensure high performance
• Typical scenarios and the business benefits of semantic search technology

The hosts continue, “This Webinar is extremely useful for CMS developers of all levels, as well as decision makers interested in deploying a semantic CMS.”

Details

Wednesday, February 29, 2012
4:00 PM – 5.00 PM Central European Time (CET)
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Read more and register for the live webcast.

NOTE: Eric Franzon will participate in a Q&A panel following the demo.

Digital Reasoning, developers of the Synthesys platform for discovering the meaning in unstructured data at scale, has on the roadmap exposing to and packaging up for its customers a simplified version of its internal technology for teaching the system new grammatical structures so that it can quickly understand custom or otherwise specific data sets.

The company has quickly added support for new languages such as Arabic, traditional and simplified Chinese, Farsi and Urdu (with more languages on the way) to Synthesys using the tool. The tool gets the software up to speed on each one in just a few weeks by teaching it the grammatical structure and then letting it go off and figure out what the words mean for its work of transforming unstructured (and structured) data into the underlying facts, entities, relationships, and associated terms.

“In the same way we teach it languages you may have a data set that is highly scientific, for example, and this tool essentially makes it easier for our customers to make Synthesys even more accurate for that specific set of data,” says Dave Danielson, VP of marketing.

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Oleg Shilovitsky, CEO, Inforbix recently commented on the exciting events that will be happening this year in the Semantic Web world, commenting, “One of the events I’m afraid I may miss is the upcoming SEMTECHBIZ in Berlin this February. I was catching online program and session information for the conference. One of the sessions caught my attention: The simple power of the link. Richard Wallis, technology evangelist of Kasabi will be talking about the power of linked data and some examples of implementations.” Read more

Today, Experian, the global information services company, announced that it has acquired Garlik Limited, a provider of web monitoring services based in the United Kingdom. Garlik uses Semantic Web Technologies to help consumers protect themselves from the risks of identity theft and financial fraud.  At the last SemTechBiz UK Conference, Steve Harris, CTO of Garlik, presented “Combatting Online Crime with RDF.” Mr. Harris presented a compelling case of Garlik’s use of Semantic Technology throughout its offerings to support business-critical, highly sensitive production systems to financial institutions worldwide. Read more