Rutrell Yasin recently wrote that a convergence of growing technologies, including semantic web technologies, will spur exciting Big Data projects in 2013. Yasin writes, “The maturity and convergence of four technologies will help government decision-makers derive more value from their big data projects in 2013, predicts Chris Biow, public sector CTO at MarkLogic, a developer of databases for big data applications. ‘Cloud computing, Hadoop and NoSQL databases are the three game-changing technologies that are being applied to big data,’ Biow said. ‘I think this is the year that government agencies get their hands around what each of them can and cannot do.’ Semantic technology is the fourth discipline to add to the equation, which can be used to extract facts from structured and unstructured data as well as handle relationships between data in a more flexible way than traditional relational databases, Biow said during an interview with GCN.” Read more

Semantic Technology for the Masses – Rapid Enterprise-Wide Deployment; Easy to Link, Browse and Analyze Content from Multiple, Disparate Sources and Formats

San Jose, Calif., June 16, 2009 (2009 Semantic Technology Conference – Booth #114)

Cambridge Semantics, the leading provider of practical semantic solutions, introduced its new Anzo platform and tools designed to make semantic technology practical and accessible for a broad range of users across all industries. Easy-to-use browser-based tools and a plug-in that allows semantic linking of spreadsheets from within Microsoft Excel(r) itself, make the Anzo suite the first enterprise-class semantic technology solution designed for non-technical users.

"Semantic technology enables a whole new level of collaboration around data that was just not viable without it," said Mike Cataldo, Cambridge Semantics Chief Executive Officer. "Just the ability to liberate data from spreadsheets so that it is easily combined and consumed by users and other applications, has a gigantic impact. Whether the challenge is compiling weekly sales figures from dozens of subsidiaries or collecting and uploading assay results from research partners around the world, these tasks require endless copying, importing, normalizing and updating-we automate that entire process. More than that, when any user can combine and analyze data from multiple systems regardless of source or structure, it creates a whole new level of organizational intelligence and business agility."

Book of Odds Using Anzo Suite to Build Innovative Web-based Resource

One of the first companies to use the new Anzo Suite is Book of Odds Enterprises, Inc., a start-up company launching a one-of-a-kind Website to make the odds of everyday life easily accessible. This groundbreaking site will leverage semantically linked and cross referenced content from hundreds of sources in order to create a fundamentally new reference source.

"The Cambridge Semantics’ suite has allowed Book of Odds to build a rich semantic database linking content from a wide array of sources and formats in order to create a powerful statistical reference tool which will be accessible to the general public," said Amram Shapiro, Founder and President, Book of Odds. "Our technical team has a solid foundation in semantic technologies and spent significant time studying our options. We concluded that Cambridge Semantics offers not only the most powerful semantic platform, but also the most practical tools. That translated into a rapid and efficient implementation."

The Anzo Suite

The Anzo Suite includes three components: Anzo for Excel, Anzo for the Web and The Anzo Data Collaboration Server. Using the suite, organizations of any size can deploy an enterprise-wide semantic fabric in just days, allowing users to quickly link internal and external data sources such as databases and spreadsheets, making the combined data easy to manipulate and cross reference, and eliminating time-consuming and repetitive data gathering tasks.

The Anzo Suite includes:

Anzo Data Collaboration Server

The fundamental semantic middleware that supports the Anzo application suite and manages all enterprise data linked to the semantic fabric to:

• Virtualize data from linked applications;
• Store data as needed in Resource Description Framework (RDF) or legacy databases;
• Enable secure, integrated access to existing and new data sources;
• Promote real-time collaboration, distributed query, new metadata and functionality for existing applications.

The Anzo Data Collaboration Server also includes a family of APIs and mapping tools called Anzo Connectors, which facilitate connecting relational databases, enterprise directory servers and Web services/SOA systems to the Anzo Data Collaboration Server to:

• Keep data where it is today to guarantee accuracy and accountability-a single source of truth;
• Display data from legacy systems in integrated views alongside content from other systems;
• Reflect changes and updates to data in the systems that house the original data.

Anzo for Excel

A plug-in for Microsoft Excel that allows users to easily link spreadsheets to the Anzo Data Collaboration Server to:

• Enable data from multiple spreadsheets to easily be combined and viewed in:
  • A consolidated spreadsheet;
  • Web applications created with Anzo on the Web;
• Use Excel as a user interface for data from other applications;
• Upload Excel data to legacy applications, databases and other spreadsheets;
• Create linked Excel templates that collect and automatically integrate Excel data.

Anzo on the Web

A browser-based modeling and analytical front-end for creating customized views of any data from any systems connected to the Anzo Data Collaboration Server, allows users to:

• Mash up views of information;
• Create intelligent lenses appropriate for the data;
• Build applications that interact in real-time with source applications.

The new products were announced at SemTech 2009, the world’s largest conference on semantic technologies, held from June 14th through the 18th at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California.

Version 6.0 Boasts Ease-of-Use, Time Savings and Provides Customers with the Ability to Discover and Publish Key Insights Using Semantic Technology

Dedham, Mass., June 15, 2009 – Metatomix, Inc., a leading provider of semantic solutions to justice and public safety, financial services, manufacturing and life sciences organizations, today announced the availability of mtx Semantic Platform version 6.0 – the newest release of the company’s core semantic technology-based platform. The next-generation version of the platform will serve as the foundational architecture for all current and future solutions offered by the company as well as its partners.

Version 6.0 offers an approach to building and deploying business solutions that discovers key insights across the distributed enterprise landscape, and triggers business processes to capture high risk events or information. For partners and solution developers, the advances in 6.0 will reduce development time and enable customers to further leverage existing enterprise IT investments. With these significant advances in the technology, Metatomix’s customers and partners will benefit from an enhanced ability to find and process structured and unstructured information within many applications across the enterprise.

Key features of Version 6.0 include the ability to operate as a stand-alone platform or inside a standard J2EE Application Server certified on Apache Tomcat, IBM Websphere and Oracle Weblogic. In addition, it features OSGi-based configuration of platform resources, which provides customers with significant code re-use and ease of deployment. The new version also includes enhanced Web Service support in order to allow customers to publish platform semantic services as standard Web services.

“Version 6.0 of our semantic platform is yet another example that Metatomix is determined to bring next-generation semantic technology to our customers and partners,” said Metatomix Chief Technology Officer Howard Greenblatt. “The new version of the platform allows our customer-base to discover and publish key insights easier and faster, thus maximizing the power of semantic technology for the enterprise like never before. Moving ahead, Metatomix looks forward to further use and adoption of the platform and its associated tooling.”

Packaged with Semantic Platform 6.0, the company is also introducing the Semantic Editing Framework – providing the ability to generate dynamic user interfaces based on domain ontologies. Metatomix’s partners and customers can now extend the intelligence generated from semantic-based data integration with a highly configurable and easily deployed user interface framework for solution development. The Semantic Editing Framework also includes several capabilities such as local caching, change notification, renderers and the synchronization of application data between rich Web client and server applications. The interface can also be used across multiple functions in the semantic application and leverages tools like Adobe Flex and other rich Internet application development architectures such as AJAX, JSP and SWT.

Finally, Version 6.0 updates Metatomix’s Eclipse-based integrated development environment (IDE) tool called mtxStudio, formerly named MetaStudio. The newly enhanced mtxStudio now allows for platform administration directly inside the tool. Further, a runtime version of the platform can be operated within mtxStudio, providing developers a single integrated workspace for modifying and building semantic solutions.

www.metatomix.com

Cambridge, MA, June 9, 2009 (Booth #114) – Cambridge Semantics, the leading provider of practical semantic solutions, announced today that its products and company leaders will be featured extensively at the 2009 Semantic Technology Conference (SemTech). With a focus on bringing scalable semantic technology solutions to the mainstream market, Cambridge Semantics will announce at the show the availability of its Anzo(TM) suite of fully packaged semantic applications designed to support practical, enterprise-wide solutions for a wide range of industries.

At the conference, members of the Cambridge Semantics leadership team, including founders of the IBM Advanced Internet Technology Team which pioneered enterprise applications of semantic technology, will be demonstrating the ability to build enterprise scalable semantic technology solutions in less than one week using the Anzo product suite. This presentation will include information on how non-technical users can link spreadsheet and relational database content to a semantic fabric, create ontologies on the fly, and easily visualize data from combined data sets.

"For Cambridge Semantics, this year’s SemTech is all about taking semantic technology off the whiteboard, out of the coders’ hands and into the mainstream," said Mike Cataldo, Cambridge Semantics Chief Executive Officer. "We are totally focused on showing the world that highly practical semantics solutions are available now and are being used by non-technical workers to quickly and easily build enterprise-scalable solutions. In an industry where implementations have traditionally required months of intensive custom coding, our customers can build their own solutions in less than a week."

During the SemTech Conference, Cambridge Semantics will unveil a dashboard it built in less than a day that semantically links data from the Recovery.gov website with relevant demographic, economic, and other data from a multitude of sources in order to provide unique insights into how the stimulus money is being spent. Cambridge Semantics will also announce its "Live in 5" challenge at the show, in which the company guarantees a ready-to-go-live, enterprise-wide application within only five days.

SemTech 2009, the world’s largest conference on semantic technologies, runs from June 14th through the 18th at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California.