System One - a Google for your Intranet!
System One is a promising new Enterprise search engine and knowledge management app, System One is like a Google for your intranet, with note-taking and collaboration which I discovered recently at the Supernova conference. It searches across many types of Enterprise and Web data - including emails, documents, database records, web pages, RSS feeds and intranet files. It also searches across internal IT systems such as CMS's, SAP, CRM apps and any other proprietary databases on a company network. It does of course take into account access rights and security (which can be managed via existing network security administration), so users only see what they're allowed to.
When I met System One's Bruno Haid, I quipped that System One sounds like a Google for your intranet! He agreed, but noted that System One is not just a search engine. It also has a weblog feature, whereby information can be published to "journals" with one click - and journals can be grouped by Author, Location, Team and more.
The blogging functionality is integrated with the search engine in a way I've never seen done before (at least not successfully!). While you're typing a journal page, relevant links and information are displayed (in real-time) right below. The more text you enter, the more relevant and precise the results become. This screenshot from the screencast shows it in action:
There are other collaboration features in System One associated with the note-taking function, which are explained in an excellent 5-minute screencast. System One seems like a very intuitive and easy-to-use app too, an impression I got when Bruno gave me a run-through of the product.
The concept of a search engine that can search across the many and varied systems inside a company firewall is a very appealing one. System One does this, but also extends it to a true read/write app - enabling people to take notes and share them with their workmates. This is a very promising piece of software and I can see this being used a lot on company intranets. Two tech bloggers I respect a lot, Danny Ayers and Thomas Vander Wal, both gave System One a big thumbs up. And I heartily concur! This is the kind of app that Google and Microsoft will probably develop in future, but for now System One has a head start.