Mark Logic envisions Open Content Architecture

Mark Logic this week introduced its Open Content Architecture strategy for enabling enterprise customers to unify and manage unstructured content and other types of enterprise information.

The Open Content Architecture pairs Mark Logic's content database technology with partner offerings to create an open, extensible platform on which content-centric applications can be quickly built and deployed, according to Max Schireson, vice president of customer solutions at Mark Logic.

The idea is to offer a standards-based repository that can integrate a variety of content-related technologies, ranging from content management, business intelligence, analytics, content integration, entity extraction, clustering, versioning, visualization, and classification.

"To date, when people want to do analytics with content, they had to choose a specific solution. We are providing a platform that [lets] people leverage a variety of different technologies [to] build a best-of-breed [application]," Schireson said. "We provide an open platform on top of which those different offerings can work together."

In conjunction with the Open Content Architecture, Mark Logic also introduced a Partner Network, which will build offerings that can be snapped onto the content repository, according to Mark Logic officials. Founding Partner Network members include Blast Radius, ClearForest, Composite Software, Exegenix, Groxis, Intellisophic, Inxight, Itemfield, and Olive Software.

Mark Logic's content database, dubbed Content Interaction Server, combines the power of a database to manipulate small-grained pieces of content with the depth and reach of a search engine, Schireson said. It can be used to search, manipulate, render, and store variably structured content.

The Content Interaction Server meets the need between a database for managing structured content and a system for managing unstructured content.

"Most content is traditionally referred to as being unstructured, but the reality is there is structure in those documents," Schireson said. "When humans read those documents they take advantage of that structure. We provide a system to take advantage of the structure that exists even though it may not be regularly structured."