Industry Solutions

 

The most advanced companies in the market offer Total KM solutions with the following main functions:

  • Information Acquisition From Various Sources
  • Information Discovery Through Agents
  • Information Publishing Using Different Formats/Styles
  • Information Distribution Through Different Distribution Media

 

The first two functions refer to the internalization and externalization functions identified as knowledge management functions. The two following ones refer to the internalization.

 

As a result, industry players either choose to offer a product encompassing all functions in the form of a suite (horizontal focus), or decide to specialize in a certain function (vertical focus). Hence, products currently offered in the market vary in terms of:

  • Features
  • Degree of Customization
  • Scalability
  • Security
  • Information Management Tools
  • Distribution media
  • Source formats
  • Pricing and licensing

 

Various vendors offer competitive grids that rate solutions based on key features that include among other things:

  • Indexing
  • Knowledge Submission
  • Knowledge Retrieval
  • Knowledge Repository
  • Content Management
  • Administration Tools

 

For an example of such competitive grids, please refer to Dataware’s grid at its website. The following are a few examples of the products currently offered:

 

    • Dataware introduced a group of servers called the Dataware II KM Suite. The core server, Knowledge Warehouse, lets users submit more than 200 types of documents stored in various repositories to a customized hierarchical index. Another server in the suite, Knowledge Directory, lets users look up experts in their organization. Experts are identified based in part on who has submitted information that is frequently accessed. Warehouse and Knowledge Directory are available for $30,000 and $10,000, respectively [R8].

 

    • Fulcrum’s Knowledge Network 2.1 searches documents in multiple repositories including Lotus Notes and Domino and Web servers. It also categorizes documents by topic. Pricing for Knowledge Network 2.1 starts at $85 per seat.

 

    • Intraspect’s solution, called Intraspect 2.0, is priced at $25,000 for 25 users and includes such features as user notification of information that interests them once such information is on the network. The product offers four functions: collection, organization, collaboration, and re-use.

 

    • Knowledgex’s Enterprise System acquires data from the Internet, internal databases and files in formats ranging from PDF to Microsoft's Word. It finds connections between data and displays them graphically. It can publish in HTML, hard copy or ASCII text and can distribute data via most E-mail systems. Its base price is $25,000.

 

    • Other solutions include Autonomy’s Knowledge suit that is priced at $5000 per server and $100 per seat. For a brief overview of other available solutions, please refer to Computer World’s Intranet site at (www.computerworld.com/intranets) and to company web sites.