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Technology Stocks : Ask Jeeves,Inc-(Nasdaq-ASKJ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: globestocks who wrote (294)	6/15/2000 11:11:00 PM
From: StockDung	Respond to of 838

Ask Jeeves is toast: " Charles Schwab Plans to Use 'Plain English' Search Software By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL In a bid to simplify the task of finding investment information on its Web site, Charles Schwab & Co. next week is expected to announce plans to use a new "plain English" search technology originally developed by scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The scientists, led by Raymond Lau, who left his post at MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science last year, have formed a new company called iPhrase Technologies Inc., Cambridge, Mass., which is getting attention for letting users write queries in English, and for responding with specific answers rather than an entire Web page. As Web sites expand in size, users find it increasingly difficult to gather the information they need, even by using the key word search buttons that most sites provide. While key word searching typically locates all documents containing the requested words, iPhrase tries to understand the meaning of a question by analyzing the words in context. "When we first saw the demo, we were pretty impressed," says Robert Sofman, senior vice president, electronic brokerage at Charles Schwab. Mr. Sofman says he asked iPhrase's software to "compare the P E ratios for the top five biotech companies and the top five chip makers." Not only did iPhrase understand P E ratio, it knew that chip meant semiconductor, and that top five meant market value rather than alphabetical order. IPhrase takes eight to 10 weeks to tune its natural language understanding to specific sites. For example, it learns that CD on a financial site is a certificate of deposit, but on a car site it is a sound system. IPhrase's responses, which often pull information from several databases on a site, sometimes are so specific that they can be akin to generating a report. In a demonstration of how it works with Microsoft Corp.'s huge CarPoint automotive site, the software responded to the question "show me music systems for minivans under $25,000" by creating a table listing the standard equipment on each type of minivan, such as whether it had a CD player or just a radio. Tuning search engines for particular sites is vital. The question about "P E's for chip stocks" asked of a general interest natural language search site such as AskJeeves resulted in such answers as a "physical education instructor," linear equations, and even, "where can I buy snacks from an online store?" Schwab declines to disclose what it is paying for the software, which it expects to start using in the fall. Kathleen Hall, an analyst who follows Internet portals and search engines for Giga Information Group in Cambridge, Mass., says iPhrase's ability to "give you back a concept that doesn't have the key words you entered is unique." She says, however, that iPhrase will face a challenge convincing Web site owners that it's worth paying for a special search engine rather than taking a standard product with their Web server software. IPhrase has attracted $11 million in venture capital from firms including Sequoia Capital, Menlo Park, Calif., which doesn't usually make East Coast investments, and two Boston area firms, Greylock Management and Charles River Ventures. Write to William M. Bulkeley at bill.bulkeley@wsj.com