Tacit Software
 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | computer software |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Headquarters | Palo Alto, California, U.S. |
Key people | David Gilmour, Founder and CEO |
| Products | ActiveNet, illumio |
Number of employees | 30 (2007) |
| Website | www.tacit.com |
Tacit Software is a company that provides expertise and knowledge search software for enterprises and consumers.
The company was founded in 1997 by David Gilmour, the founder of Giga Information Group (now owned by Forrester Research) and is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. The company is funded by Draper Fisher Jurvetson (Steve Jurvetson is a company director), Woodside Fund, Alta Partners and the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). In-Q-Tel was also an early investor in the company.
Products and Customers
ActiveNet
Tacit’s flagship product, ActiveNet, automatically reads email and other documents to form profiles of user interests and expertise.[1] A user’s level of expertise on a particular topic is determined by the volume of information pertaining to that topic that is contained within the user’s communications.[2] Once profiles are formed, users can decide which profile topics to make public and which to discard. For those searching for expertise, ActiveNet allows searches of public profiles and also can broker connections by sending private, single-blind messages to those who match a search and letting them respond if and when appropriate. Tacit corporate customers include Aventis (now Sanofi-aventis), GlaxoSmithKline, Morgan Stanley, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.[3]
illumio
In November of 2006, Tacit introduced a new product called illumio. illumio consists of an Internet service run by Tacit, a downloadable piece of client software and (optionally) a desktop search engine from Google or Microsoft.[4] Using illumio, a user can send out a request for expertise that is distributed to other illumio users in a group. Each illumio user’s PC decides locally whether the request matches him or her. If a strong match is found, the local illumio client will notify the user. It is up to the user to decide whether he or she would like to respond, and only then will his or her identity be revealed to the searcher.[5] illumio is free for individual users; Tacit plans to make money by charging companies for commercial licenses although it has not determined pricing yet.[6]
Intellectual Property
Tacit holds 13 patents.[7] These patents pertain to the following:
- Creation of user profiles with public and private components
- Assigning confidence levels to topics as they relate to users
- Methodologies for accessing user profile information
References
- ^ Kaihla, Paul. (January 1, 2004) Business 2.0 The Matchmaker in the Machine
- ^ Caton, Michael. (October 3, 2005) eWeek ActiveNet 3.2 Review
- ^ Kaihla, Paul. (January 1, 2004) Business 2.0 The Matchmaker in the Machine
- ^ Spanbauer, Scott. (December 1, 2006) CIO Magazine Knowledge Management 2.0
- ^ Markoff, John. (May 29, 2006) New York Times Software to Look for Experts Among Your Friends.
- ^ Ackerman, Elise. (December 18, 2006) San Jose Mercury News illumio - a New Approach to Social Search
- ^ United States Patent Office patents: 6115709, 6421669, 6154783, 6205472, 6253202, 6377949, 6405197, 6640229, 6647384, 6668251, 6711750, 6832224, 6970879
Other External Links
- PC Magazine: Startup Illumio Asks: Hey, Can You Help Me Find This?
- Wall Street Journal: Business Solutions
- Application Development Tools: Tacit Makes The Collaboration Connection
- Computerwire: Tacit Puts Process Spin on Expertise Location