Q: What are the primary products offered by Inmon Data Systems (IDS)?
A: IDS Foundation is the core product that allows for the extraction of unstructured text-based content from multiple sources, and the transformation of that content into a structured format before it is loaded into your existing relational database, thereby making that data extremely useful for important business intelligence. IDS Visualization provides a pictorial representation of the unstructured content including the all-important correlations between the data. More information about each of these solutions can be found at inmondatasystems.com.

Q: What are some of the major uses of IDS products and solutions?
A: IDS products can be used for multiple high-value business applications including strategic marketing research, decision support for medical and financial applications, manufacturing process improvement, customer relationship improvement, cross selling, and regulatory compliance.

Q: What types of people and companies use the Inmon Data Systems technology?
A: Inmon Data Systems technology is readily available for any organization seeking a complete picture of their information assets by incorporating their structured data with their unstructured data. Industries that benefit from IDS include medical, pharmaceutical, insurance, manufacturing, oil and gas, financial and retail. Common users of IDS include business analysts, research directors, compliance officers, legal counsel, financial analysts, and data analysts.

Q: How does Inmon Data Systems differ from other text analytics solutions?
A: First of all, there is no company that does exactly what we do. There are several differences to be noted when comparing IDS to companies that are part of the broad category known as text analytics; here are a few of the major differences:

1. IDS products are platform independent. You don’t have to disrupt your current technology environment to benefit from the IDS solution.
2. IDS products do not require sophisticated knowledge and extensive up-front setup work to provide value. In other words, IDS solutions are built to help analysts and managers discover business intelligence that was previously unknown, not just to confirm what the analyst already suspected.
3. Unlike some products that depend on specific applications and data sources, IDS products work with all sources of text-based unstructured content. New sources of content are easy to add.
4. IDS Foundation is available with over 200 context-based glossaries that are specific to your industry and application. This helps you get productive very quickly.
5. IDS products use a patented 13-step process for extracting and transforming your unstructured data into useful business intelligence. The IDS ‘Thematic Approach’ ensures that the resulting data is truly useful for your unique business requirements.

Q: How is this Thematic Approach different from the Linguistic approach used by text analytics vendors?
A: The thematic approach does not rely on understanding semantics or language. Unlike the linguistic approach, the thematic approach exposes naturally occurring correlations in data in a way that is language independent and with less analytical processing overhead. Also, the IDS solution does not require extensive training or prior knowledge from the business manager or analyst to quickly derive value from the product.

Q: Does Inmon Data Systems technology work with languages other than English?
A: You bet. This is another major benefit of the thematic approach because it allows IDS solutions to be completely language independent.

Q: How long does it take to install the Foundation product from Inmon Data Systems?
A: Due to the non-disruptive nature of our solutions, the average time for installation of a new Foundation implementation is one day or less and you can see the benefits within as little as a few days after installation.

Q: What kind of training is required to use IDS solutions?
A: Inmon Data Systems software is designed to be intuitive and easy to use. As such, the average time it takes a person to get up to speed is no more than a few days of self study or a single day of training.