Cool Vendors in Information Governance and MDM, 2013
Published: 25 April 2013
Moscow, Russia (www.intelteq.com)

Analysis by Andrew White
Why Cool: Intelteq has created a semantic network modeling tool called Semantic Topology to help discover and identify the meaning of text. The technology was built on the study over many years of text-based information streams spanning language and cultural barriers in Europe. The vendor claims that its model can determine the semantic meaning of a word or term using no more than 152 related terms, or nodes, in the model. The terms fed into the model can be in any language (previously parsed) and related to any object. Up to 152 other terms (though in most cases, many fewer) are needed in order to accurately determine the meaning and context of a term.
The application of this capability could be significant in that IT shops can simplify their discovery of knowledge about what data they have in their organizations. There are, of course, other semantic discovery and modeling tools on the market, but this vendor has a unique angle. The history of the model is bound in the study of complex European languages and translating terms semantically, across language, even when a context changes. As such, the derived semantic model provides a uniquely culture- and language-independent solution. For the most complex application and information landscapes, even those assembled across language barriers, this could be a great way to jump-start an effective MDM or enterprise information management (EIM) program by discovering the semantic model that sits at the center of the organization.
Challenges:
Intelteq might be the global semantic modeling engine to replace all others if its 152-node maximum stands the test of value in actual business usage. This is a very small vendor of ten employees, based in Russia, with what is a unique but unproven concept. Its website is not very friendly to English readers, so the vendor is having difficulty getting access to prospects with problems it could help with in North America and Western Europe. Funding may be forthcoming if Gartner, Inc. | G00250574 Page 3 of 10 Intelteq can convince venture capital firms of its potential as a differentiated semantic discovery solution applied to enterprise problems — a kind of "semantic enterprise" offering.

Another challenge, common with such vendors, is that a cool technology like this needs to be applied to specific and named business problems or opportunities for it to be found by prospects.

Having the coolest all-purpose tool is great, but unless the market is actively looking for such a tool (and for the most part, it is not) it will not sell well.
Who Should Care:
Information strategists and chief data officers looking for innovative — even pioneering — semantic discovery tools for complex, large-scale, big data, information-discovery problems would do well to look at this vendor. It offers a new way to address a broad set of semantic problems, especially those related to semantic master data models, and therefore central to information governance programs like MDM and EIM.