Lotus unveils latest "discovery"

Lotus Development Corp. on Monday unveiled the Discovery Server, an advanced search solution with the "killer app" of expertise location. It's designed to help organizations maintain and expand their knowledge base.

Combining the Discovery Server with Lotus' recently released K-station knowledge portal creates the Lotus Knowledge Discovery System, previously known by the code name Raven.

The Discovery Server was unveiled Monday at the Lotusphere 2001 conference in Orlando, Fla.

During an October interview with FCW, Al Zollar, Lotus' president and chief executive officer, said Raven should be thought of as a solution with multiple deliveries. He said the Discovery Server includes the "killer app" of the solution: expertise location.

That means "being able to find the right expert in seconds rather than days," Zollar said. "Government and business waste a lot of time at that right now, and that's right on the verge of being delivered."

The Discovery Server uses an advanced metrics analysis technology to uncover and display the link between people, content and topics. This service helps to ensure that all the relevant knowledge and experiences of an organization are readily available for the execution of related tasks and projects.

The product will be shipped in the first quarter of 2001 as part of the overall Knowledge Discovery System. Pricing for the complete system starts at $395 per user, with discounts for multiple users. The server currently operates on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT or Windows 2000, and additional platform support is coming soon.

The requirements for the new server are:

Clients running Lotus Notes R5 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 and above. A server with a 10G hard drive, 384M of RAM, and an Intel Corp. Pentium II 500 MHz processor or above.