Recommind releases MindServer automated content categorizer

Recommind released a new product this week that enables companies to automatically categorize and organize content across a large organization. The new product call MindServer Categorizer creates taxonomies and content categories on the fly automatically based on a set of criteria in the engine or defined by you.

Craig Carpenter, VP of Marketing at Recommind says that it's proactive information management and that the product provides a way for records managers to deal with compliance and eDiscovery requests in an automated fashion. "The idea of using this tool is to use the technology to extrapolate the input from the records manager across the collection." He says it can categorize virtually any type of data except highly specialized file formats. He also points out, it is not optimal for audio and video files, although  it can work with the metadata associated with these files.

As Kaz Thomas at CMS Watch points out, this is not a new product per se, but one the at has been repackaged for a more general market:

"Although it's being introduced today as a standalone product, MindServer Categorization--technically speaking--is not new. The product has been sold in Germany for years, where major media companies have used it to auto-categorize news feeds. Today's release represents the first time MindServer Categorization has been localized into English and productized for a general market (i.e., not just media firms)."

Carpenter explains that his company has defined a recommended work flow that provides a way to generate sample data in order to test the accuracy of the system. Records administrators can then tweak the system as needed until they are producing the right balance of documents to save and delete.

He says having such a system in place before litigation or a regulatory investigation could cover a company, even if some documents got deleted by accident. "The test isn't 'Did you save everything?'," Carpenter says. "The standard is, 'Was your records management and data recycling practices reasonable?'" If it was, he explains, then you are going to be covered.

Thomas estimates the cost of the system to be around 150,000, although Carpenter wouldn't confirm that price he did say it was in the right ball park.

For more information:
- see the Recommind press release
- Kaz Thomas' analysis on CMS Watch

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