Cambridge Semantics

True Enterprise Collaboration

While semantic technology has been widely touted as the future of computing, until now no company has managed to deploy practical semantic capabilities that bring the technology to the enterprise in an expandable, reusable fabric. Now, for the first time, business users can discover, view and even update information that was created in a different application in different parts of the business. For example, relevant research from one division in China can now be found and leveraged in divisions in Germany and the U.S. even though the divisions are unaware of each other.

All data is Discoverable by non-technical users

In semantic computing the meaning of data travels with the data in our “Semantic Fabric”. This allows users to simply ask for the data they want in terms they know. No IT data experts are required to “get the data ready” or create a data mart before the user can ask questions. Now users can simply ask the system about the data it has and get the answers immediately. Within security limits a user can discover any information that exists in the Semantic Fabric.

Breaking the barriers to getting hidden or isolated information into an enterprise data store

Mission critical data in most corporations resides not just in enterprise systems, but in thousands, often millions of spreadsheets. It is this spreadsheet data that is isolated and prone to errors. Often emailed around and modified until it is not clear what the source was. Most BI tools are very brittle when dealing with spreadsheet data, making it difficult to integrate this data from multiple sources. Maintaining these interfaces requires complicated technical support. Cambridge Semantics has developed a plug-in that runs with Excel and links spreadsheets to the semantic fabric. It’s simple point and click interface makes it easy for average Excel users to connect their data to the fabric. Now information in spreadsheets can become part of the discoverable data in the enterprise. Because these links can be real-time, users can make updates in spreadsheets and the changes are seen immediately anywhere else the data is used. Other spreadsheets, web views, etc are updated immediately anywhere in the world. This creates the opportunity for true interactive collaboration.

Faster, Smarter and Easier to Use

With near real-time updating, customers can collaborate and share data dynamically whether it comes from Excel, the web, a data warehouse or an enterprise application. Data can be viewed through simple web interfaces or even in Excel. The user does not have to know the origin of the data. They can “discover" its existence using day-to-day business terminology. Users no longer need to meet with IT data analyst to find out what data is available, plan expensive project just to get reports they want or wait for data marts to be created. Semantically-enabled data brings computing to an entirely new level:

• Data Access. Semantic data standards act as a common language for data of all formats, making a semantic platform the natural choice for working with information in databases, spreadsheets, documents, the Web, and more.
• Flexibility. Semantic data is freed from the confines of the software that creates it. Liberated data can be consumed and manipulated by any other application; a database, on the Web, Excel – it is completely application independent.
• Extensibility. Business requirements typically change more quickly than application software. Semantically-enabled software is built for change. Logic changes, data-schema changes, and presentation changes can all be made on the fly in a matter of hours by non-programming resources.
• Security. Traditional security models offer limited protection because they secure systems rather than data. With the Anzo™ suite of semantic applications, security is possible at the data element level. Wherever the data goes, it carries its full security model along with it.
• History. Anzo tracks data history or provenance at the data element level. This means that all changes to any data element can be traced back to who and when a change was made. Even spreadsheet data can now be traced allowing businesses to manage risk and resolve critical compliance issues for desktop data.

As former 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. By building the most robust semantic middleware available today, they have created a platform that dramatically simplifies the process for building innovative applications that scale and integrate easily.