IMR to announce new version of Alchemy at KMExpo

Managing storage in many forms

Combining document, content and storage management features into one software solution, IMR (Englewood, CO, http://www.imrgold.com) is expected to announce the next version of its flagship Alchemy software at Knowledge Management Expo Oct. 15 to 17 at McCormick Place in Chicago. With Alchemy 5.0, IMR is breaking out of its CD-R-centric role and into the broader market. In addition to CD-R, the new storage management suite will support hard disks, CD-RW, DVD-RAM, MO--even Zip and SyQuest drives.

The only storage type not supported is tape, which the company claims has sequential storage limitations. With Alchemy 5.0, fully indexed data can be stored on any network or local PC, providing content-based information access globally or locally and supporting any storage medium.

"Most businesses simply require an efficient and affordable strategy to capture, index, store, retrieve and view diverse data types" said Dan Lucarini, IMR's director of marketing. "For this large segment of the market, enterprise document management systems and object-enabled relational databases are often too expensive and too complex to deploy.""Companies like Boeing (that manages all of the documents related to the NASA space station), MCI (that stores millions of fully indexed telephone statements), and First Data (that has stored and indexed more than 2 billion credit-card statements) understand the power and cost-effectiveness of IMR software," Lucarini said. "In many ways, the company has pioneered significant industry changes, has technically overcome many operating system and storage device limitations and is ushering in a new era of content-managed information access that replaces the file-centric paradigm we all deal with daily."

Lucarini boasts that IMR has improved on the Microsoft model for fully indexed server volumes. "At its foundation (core code and technology), it is years ahead of the Microsoft solution," he said.

Alchemy features compressed full-text indexes, fast retrieval from huge databases, profile field query and high-performance document viewers. The Web2CD and Docs2CD modules, which were included in the initial 2CD product, are being built into Alchemy 5.0. (Docs2CD is an option.) "Reverse the Web2CD thinking and you'll have a hint at what we're doing," said Lucarini, promising that additional Internet features will be included next year to extend the original Web2CD specification.

Other product highlights include:
• multiuser Alchemy Search engine for unlimited, concurrent use on Novell or NT networks;
• forms overlay design, retrieval and printing;
• automated image and document file linking;
• optional integration with document imaging programs;
• batch profiling to increase productivity by automating data entry;
• all files indexed and stored in their native file format;
• integrated forms overlay designer;
• write up to 99 times to one CD.

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