Cambridge Semantics’ Founders
Cambridge Semantics Inc. was founded in 2007 by the same engineers that created IBM’s Advanced Internet Technology Team. During their tenure at IBM, they were responsible for a number of firsts, including:
- IBM’s first Web Application Server – for events including the 1996 Atlanta Olympics
- IBM Sash Weblications – Web 2.0 on the desktop years before Web 2.0 existed
- IBM InsightLink—IBM’s first production solution based on Web Services technologies
- IBM Semantic Layered Research Platform – open-source enterprise semantic middleware
As founding members of IBM’s Advanced Internet Technology Team, Cambridge Semantics engineers have been working at the forefront of the semantic space from its inception. These engineers brought their innovation and experience building industrial-grade software applications to Cambridge Semantics, where they have built the most advanced and most practical suite of semantic middleware and plug-ins available today.
Semantic Technology
Semantic technology has the potential to revolutionize the way data is accessed and shared in a way that has not been seen since the advent of the internet. The founders of Cambridge Semantics saw this potential but knew it would only be realized through practical solutions to real business problems - without requiring a major IT initiative. Choices for those wanting to leverage the power of semantic technology have been anything but practical: limited either to light, proof-of-concept tools that won’t scale or heavy platforms that require major systems integration projects just to get started. Cambridge Semantics solves that problem with the Anzo suite of products, the first semantic middleware that plugs in easily to enterprise applications and scales to any environment.
Focus on Practical Solutions
The company’s focus is to apply its technology where it can provide the highest value in the least time. Examples include addressing the growing shadow IT problem by making spreadsheet data accessible, track-able and consumable by users and applications across the enterprise; providing fast, seamless integration across applications; and providing tools for end users to build their own views of data on the fly. Cambridge Semantics tools have been developed so that they can be implemented with minimal impact on your organization. Solutions like linking together hundreds of spreadsheets and creating consolidated views of data can be implemented in a matter of days. Take on as much or as little as you wish initially, then extend the solution at your own pace with your own resources as it makes sense to do so.
Semantics Makes it Possible, Anzo Makes it Practical
Until now integrating and sharing data from end-user developed applications like spreadsheets or absorbing information from external business partners has been nearly impossible. Document management systems, data warehouses, BI solutions or portals will only take you so far. The databases are too numerous, document data is too hard to extract, desired views are too variable. The W3C semantic technology standards provide a framework for the flexibility and agility to surmount these challenges. Cambridge Semantics’ Anzo platform brings the benefits of semantics to end users and the software they use from day to day. In short: semantics makes it possible and Anzo makes it practical.
Cambridge Semantics Inc. is a privately held company based in Massachusetts.
The Cambridge Semantics Solution
The Anzo data collaboration software layers over your legacy applications and extend their capabilities to allow new data to be added without touching the underlying database. Integrate new systems with minimal work. Provide user interfaces that are easily defined by the user or are smart enough to define themselves based on the type of data the user selects.
- Virtualize your Data - The first step is to virtualize your data so that location and format no longer matter.
- Let the user draw a picture of what they want - Once your data is virtualized, this is easily accomplished. Cambridge Semantics offers your end users the ability to literally create a picture of what they want.
- Then the system fills in the picture with the desired data.
- Allow updates anywhere that update everywhere - Because everything is accessed through the semantic fabric, data can be updated anywhere and (if you want) it is updated everywhere else it is used. A user could be viewing data in a Web application that originates from a spreadsheet elsewhere in the enterprise. As long as the user has permission to do so, if they update the data in the Web frontend it is simultaneously updated in the spreadsheet.