ISYS Search Software
ISYS Search Software is a supplier of enterprise search software for information access, management and re-use. The company markets and sells a suite of embedded search, mobile access and information management infrastructure technologies.
Established in 1988 by Ian Davies, ISYS previously marketed and sold enterprise search applications. Davies developed prototype text retrieval software that would be suitable for use in large databases. The Australian market for the prototype software developed, and in 1991, PC Week Magazine wrote a favourable review that assisted in attempts to break into the US market.[1]
An ownership interest held by Australia's federal shadow communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, created some political discussion in 2010, as the Government asserted that Turnbull had a conflict of interest between his shadow partfolio and his personal financial stake in ISYS.
ISYS products compete with the Verity Ultraseek product and the Google Search Appliance, while its infrastructure and embedded search applications compete with Autonomy and FAST Search & Transfer (now a subsidiary of Microsoft).
The ISYS engine is capable of searching multiple disparate data sources, including Microsoft Office, WordPerfect, Open Office, HTML, ZIP files, all major email products, all SQLdata sources, SharePoint, Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino. Some of ISYS's content mining capabilities include automatic Categorization, entity extraction, parametric search, Hit-highlighting and navigation, relevance ranking and multiple query methods.
In 2006, ISYS released version 8 which includes automatic entity recognition for text mining, e-discovery and expertise location, federated searching and more formats.
In 2007, ISYS entered the Linux marketplace with the release of the ISYS:sdk and ISYS:web server for Linux platforms, the company’s first foray into non-Windows environments.
In 2008, ISYS version 9 was released, which includes enhanced e-discovery support, results flagging, intelligent query expansion, custom search forms, parametric and timeline refinement. Also, support for EMC Documentum, Interwoven WorkSite, Office 2007.
In 2009, ISYS released several new applications and a new suite for information access (see applications listed above). Applications include ISYS Integration Kit and ISYS File Readers for OEM search and text extraction; ISYS Anywhere for mobile enterprise search; and the 2009 ISYS Enterprise Access Suite.