Government Agencies Seek Better Access to Internal and External Information, New Artafact Survey Shows

SYNOPSIS: Survey of more than 200 U.S. government agency employees reveals that they are not satisfied with their current on-line access to information, as more than seventy-percent utilize mostly Web search to find information, while neglecting other internal and external data sources.

FREMONT, Calif., April 28, 2003 -- Analysts working for government and law enforcement agencies face complex challenges in accessing and analyzing all of the information available to them, according to a new survey conducted by Artafact, a market research firm. Survey results illustrate that significant internal and external information sources are often neglected, as most of the information that government employees obtain is through Web search engines only.

This recent analysis of U.S. government employees is released as the Bush administration plans to increase information technology (IT) spending, by a proposed $59 billion, in an effort to build a more efficient and secure IT systems for the civilian federal government network, as well as the military and security agencies.

Artafact's 2003 Government Search/Information Retrieval Market Study, sponsored by Inxight Software, a leading provider of software solutions for enterprise search and information discovery, also includes data about the types of advanced search attributes that government employees feel are central to their jobs. These attributes include speed of information retrieval, ease of use, better filtering of results and the ability to more effectively analyze information.

The primary objective of the study, conducted in March 2003, was to determine how government agencies are currently utilizing information resources -- from access and retrieval of data to analysis and distribution. More than 200 U.S. government agency employees responded to a set of questions regarding the current status and expectations of information retrieval capabilities within their organization.

"Government agencies are using multiple search engines to meet their needs for extracting information," said Linda Stegeman, president of Artafact. "While Web search engines provide access to information that is available on the Internet, these search utilities do not access or analyze the vast amounts of data, such as email, internal reports or immigration records, that are housed within government agencies. It is apparent that sophisticated search systems, such as what Inxight provides, are vital to enabling government agencies to utilize all of their critical data resources."

Additional findings of the Artafact research survey include:

Government employees feel that they need advanced information retrieval capabilities:

-- A mere twenty-seven percent of respondents are very satisfied with their current level of on-line access to internal and external information

-- Sixty-four percent feel that speed of information retrieval is very important

-- Fifty-eight percent want an information retrieval solution that is easy to use

-- Forty-nine percent believe that it is very important for a search solution to deliver precise results

-- The ability to analyze information faster is important to forty percent of respondents

Respondents feel that their jobs require advanced information retrieval tools:

-- Forty-two percent want their information retrieval solution to provide "fact extraction" capabilities for identifying relationships, events and activities among named entities such as persons, places, organizations, etc.

-- Forty-one percent feel that "link analysis" -- the ability to determine relationships between entities -- e.g. persons, organizations, phone numbers, etc. -- is very important

-- Forty-three percent want their information retrieval solution to automatically classify documents, providing structure that will help them quickly focus on specific topic areas

-- Forty-five percent feel that the ability to preview intelligent summaries of a documents before investing time to read them is very important

-- Visual navigation abilities are very important to forty-five percent of respondents

-- Forty-four percent want a natural language search engine that can intuitively understand the underlying meaning of search queries, significantly increasing the accuracy of results

According to survey results, the respondents who use enterprise search in conjunction with Web search view Autonomy, IBM, Inxight and Verity as the leaders in the enterprise search market.

About the Artafact Government Search/Information Retrieval Survey

The 2003 Government Search/Information Retrieval Survey was conducted by Artafact Research on behalf of Inxight Software. The survey results are based on responses from 205 U.S. government agency employees. The survey was completed via email over a two-week period in March 2003. To receive a copy of the survey results, please email acousens@inxight.com.

About Artafact

Artafact provides on-line software and services for capturing the voice of the customer. Using Artafact's methodology, companies gain in depth knowledge of their customers' needs, attitudes and opinions real-time. For more information, visit http://www.artafact.com or call 510-651-9178.

About Inxight

Inxight is a leading provider of enterprise software solutions that provide the fastest route from search to discovery. Using Inxight's solutions, companies can better access, understand and use the roughly 85 percent of information not housed in a database or other structured format. Inxight is the only company that provides a complete, scalable solution to enable search and discovery in all major languages. Customers include Ariba, Computer Associates, Factiva, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, LexisNexis, Reuters, SAP, SAS, Thomson and Xerox. The company has offices throughout the United States and Europe. For more information, visit http://www.inxight.com or call 408-738-6299 (in the U.S.) or +44 (0) 1252 761314 (in Europe).

SOURCE Inxight Software

Web Site: http://www.inxight.com