Thunderstone Blog: Customized Search Engine & Search Software

Integrates Entity Extraction With Guided Navigation During The Creation Of Search Indexes

CLEVELAND, OH November 12, 2007 Thunderstone Software LLC (http://www.thunderstone.com) has licensed Inxight Software's SmartDiscovery Awareness Server and ThingFinder Professional SDK -- which intelligently identifies and extracts key entities (or “things”) from any text-data source. Now Thunderstone customers can add this valuable option to their Thunderstone Search Appliances, providing even better contextual query results with built-in recognition of “People,” “Places” and “Organizations” in the searched data.

Looking for a way to more quickly and accurately access valuable BI data residing in disparate forms and locations across an enterpise, Thunderstone wanted to improve actionable query results on the Thunderstone Search Appliance platform by incorporating “entity extraction with guided navigation” technology that automatically creates metadata based on the content of indexed documents.

Unlike others who have licensed similar tools from Inxight Software, Thunderstone has integrated these guided navigation capabilities into the actual crawling technology of the Thunderstone Search Appliances. Instead of applying on-the-fly entity extraction to filter the results of searches as queries are executed, Thunderstone Search Appliances apply the appropriate entity tags to all relevant data during the creation of the search indexes.

By eschewing the post-query “results filtering” approach to entity extraction and opting to take fuller advantage of automated meta-tagging at the time the indexing process takes place, the Thunderstone Search Appliances enable users to more rapidly and thoroughly search the entire contents of all included documents.

About Thunderstone
Thunderstone Software LLC (http://www.thunderstone.com) pioneered simultaneous searching of both structured and unstructured data with the Texis relational database optimized for full-text search. Since 1981 Thunderstone has continued to develop its global reputation as provider of the worlds most powerful, scalable and flexible enterprise search solutions.

Sales contact: Fred Harmon

+1 216 820 2200 ext.105

Media contact: Peter Thusat

+1 216 820 2200 ext.118

Enables Enterprise Search Across Broad Array of Content

CLEVELAND, OH - August 28, 2007 - Thunderstone Software LLC has partnered with Persistent Systems, a leading custom software development company, to enable Thunderstone's Search Appliance customers to use Persistent's "Enterprise Content Search-enabling Connectors (ECSC)" in creating search-based applications across a broad array of enterprise content.

New products currently available include Thunderstone Search Appliance connectors for:

• IBM Lotus Notes/Domino 5.x and above
• Microsoft SharePoint 2007, 2003 (web services)
• EMC Documentum eRoom 7.2 and above
• EMC Documentum Content Server 5.3
• Hummingbird Document Manager 5.1

Scheduled for release later this year include Thunderstone Search Appliance connectors for:

• BEA Weblogic Portal 10.0
• SAP KM PortalM
• Interwoven WorkSite
• TWiki Portal 4.0

"We are excited to partner with Thunderstone. This joint solution will enable Thunderstone customers to extend their search into proprietary content repositories in a seamless manner," said T. M. Vijayaraman, Senior Vice President of Persistent Systems.

The Thunderstone Search Appliance provides a "plug-and-play" search solution that can handle more than 1,000 queries per minute. It delivers tremendous value without adding costly administrative overhead. Whether configured as the Small Business Edition or the Enterprise Edition, a Thunderstone Search Appliance offers an attractive choice of perpetual licensing options and underlying functionality simply unmatched by any competitor in the marketplace.

About Persistent Systems
Persistent Systems is a leader in Outsourced Product Development (OPD) and product integration services. Over 17 years Persistent has established an impeccable delivery track record with more than 170 Global Software companies. Persistent's Enterprise Content Search-enabling (ECSC) framework enables Enterprise Search, eDiscovery and other Enterprise 2.0 content collaboration tools to integrate with a variety of Enterprise Content Systems. Persistent Systems has been ranked amongst the fastest growing Indian companies in the Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific 2006 report of Deloitte and has been classified as an "Inventor and Product Development Specialist" by Forrester Research.

About Thunderstone
Thunderstone Software LLC pioneered simultaneous searching of both structured and unstructured data with the Texis relational database optimized for full text search. Since 1981 Thunderstone has continued to develop its global reputation as provider of the world's most powerful, scalable and flexible enterprise search solutions.

Sales Contact: Mark Bacho

+1 216 820 2200 ext.105

Media Contact: Peter Thusat

+1 216 820 2200 ext.118

Cleveland, OH --Dec 14, 2006 -- Thunderstone Software LLC announced the addition of results authorization to the SBE (Small Business Edition) Search Appliances with version 6.2. Results authorization has been part of the Enterprise appliance for over a year, and ensures that users only see results that they have permission to open.

Working across file-servers and web-based intranets and applications, small businesses can now deploy a search solution secure in the knowledge that their employees will not find documents they don't have access to.

ABOUT THE THUNDERSTONE SEARCH APPLIANCE

The Thunderstone Search Appliance provides a "plug and play" search solution for intranets and web sites. It indexes most document formats and can be extensively customized by non-technical managers.

The Thunderstone Search Appliance was rated a "Great Choice" and praised for "simplicity, low cost of ownership, and extensibility" in a recent independent analysis by the Patricia Seybold Group. Appliances scale up to handle collections with many of millions of documents. Example acquisition cost is $4,995 for a version to index 100,000 documents. U.S. government customers may purchase Search Appliances through the GSA Schedule.

Thunderstone Software LLC is a pioneer of search engine technology, providing text retrieval products to industry, government, and educational institutions since 1981. For more information, contact Thunderstone at +1 216-820-2200, , or http://www.thunderstone.com.

Cleveland, Ohio -- Nov. 21, 2005 -- Thunderstone Software announced significant enhancements in the new Enterprise Version 6 of the Thunderstone Search Appliance. The new features help organizations index more types of content than ever before. Enhancements include:

• DATABASE WALKING. Considerable enterprise content is contained in relational databases that cannot be crawled by web search solutions. The new DBWalk technology is designed to index database content that is not otherwise web accessible. Databases supported initially are: Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Sybase, and Thunderstone Texis. An example use is for making the text descriptions in a parts catalog database searchable on the company's intranet.
• DATA LOADING. The new DataLoad API (application program interface) provides a way to index data where crawling is not practical or where real-time updating is important. The API allows the Appliance to accept data feeds from external sources. Example uses are for newswires, discussion forums, and similar sources that have a continuing flow of new items.
• RESULT AUTHORIZATION. In many enterprise search situations, not every user is entitled to see every document indexed. Search results must contain only links to documents that each particular user has permission to read. The Search Appliance now offers several methods to accomplish result authorization, designed for different intranet environments. The authorization technology applies to searches of databases, file systems, and web sites. An example use is to enable sales personnel to search customer contracts in a corporate legal archive, while keeping other legal documents confidential.
• SNMP (Simple Network Monitoring Protocol). Many enterprise system administrators rely on the industry-standard SNMP to remotely track performance of servers in many locations. The Search Appliance now may be monitored in the same manner. Example resources that may be checked are disk space, system load, and critical processes.

ABOUT THE THUNDERSTONE SEARCH APPLIANCE

The Thunderstone Search Appliance provides a "plug and play" search solution for intra-nets and web sites. It indexes most document formats and can be extensively customized by non-technical managers. Previously introduced enterprise-level features include file system crawling; distributed administration; and data mirroring.

The Thunderstone Search Appliance was rated a "Great Choice" and praised for "simplicity, low cost of ownership, and extensibility" in a recent independent analysis by the Patricia Seybold Group. Appliances scale up to handle collections with many of millions of documents. Example acquisition cost is $15,000 for a version to index 500,000 documents. U.S. government customers may purchase Search Appliances through the GSA Schedule.

Thunderstone Software LLC is a pioneer of search engine technology, providing text retrieval products to industry, government, and educational institutions since 1981. For more information, contact Thunderstone at +1 216-820-2200, , or http://www.thunderstone.com.

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Cleveland, Ohio, April 25, 2005 -- Thunderstone Software has announced a major step forward in the enterprise search market. It is the first search appliance vendor to offer comprehensive administrative access controls for distributed management.

The new capability extends Thunderstone's technical leadership in turn-key search solutions. The breakthrough allows departmental administrators to control their own subsets of a Thunderstone Search Appliance enterprise index.

Thunderstone's innovation is conceptually simple, but underneath is an advanced permissions management database. It enables a top-level administrator to delegate Search Appliance control privileges to any number of other managers. Each manager receives whole or partial responsibility for one or more document indexes, and has access only to those specific controls.

Security features are key to making distributed management possible. Search Appliance sub-administrators cannot interfere with other managers' indexes or settings. Controls are accessed from a secure web page.

"This is a major advance in the enterprise search space," said John Turnbull, Thunderstone general manager. "Distributed management, with its associated security, is crucial to many enterprise search situations. Thunderstone is proud to be the first search appliance vendor to offer administrative access controls."

Thunderstone's innovation solves a key problem in indexing across multiple web sites or file servers: Typically, each department administrator - not an enterprise level manager - knows which departmental content should be included in the enterprise index. Equally important, department administrators know which content should be excluded for reasons of confidentiality or security. But until now, they could not control the way an enterprise-level search appliance crawled their documents.

Using the new features, the top Thunderstone Search Appliance administrator may even give different controls to different sub-administrators. Example controls are: document file types; re-indexing schedule; category assignments; document inclusion/exclusion; and many other settings.

Separate indexes may be searched alone or combined into one or more "meta-searches." Thus there may be several different "views" of enterprise content. In a typical scenario, there are different but overlapping indexes for business partners, regular employees, and corporate management.

"And unlike other search appliance vendors, Thunderstone allows customers to index third-party information such as government or industry web sites," said Turnbull. "This policy enables enterprises to create unique targeted collections of web information for their users or for competitive intelligence."

Many other features of the Thunderstone Search Appliance are intended specifically for enterprise requirements. These include:

• Files system crawling. File servers may be indexed directly without web server software.
• Document-level security. Search results are limited to only items that each user has permission to read.
• Mirroring. Organizations may maintain an optional redundant system.
• Real-time indexing. Documents may be added to or removed from the index instantly.
• Automatic scale-up. Larger document limits may be enabled by remote software upgrade or by adding appliances as needed.

Thunderstone Search Appliances scale up to handle collections with hundreds of millions of documents. The Appliances also provide excellent value. Example acquisition cost is $15,000 for a version to index 500,000 documents.

Thunderstone Software LLC is a pioneer of search engine technology, providing text retrieval products to industry, government, and educational institutions since 1981. Thunderstone's TEXIS text-relational database technology powers the Search Appliances, or may be licensed separately. The Appliances provide a "plug and play" search solution for intra-nets and web sites; index most document formats; and can be extensively customized by non-technical managers.

For more information, visit http://www.thunderstone.com or call +1 216-820-2200. U.S. government customers may purchase Search Appliances through Thunderstone's GSA contract GS-35F-0914P.