As the World Wonders What Future Solutions IBM's Watson Will Solve, Real Businesses Use EasyAsk Today

BURLINGTON, Mass., Feb. 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- In the afterglow of IBM Watson's victory on Jeopardy!, EasyAsk, an industry leader and original innovator of natural language search technology, today discussed a number of real-world solutions using the intuitive EasyAsk Business Edition natural language technology.  These solutions from suppliers Siemens, Personnel Data Systems, Ceridian and GenSource span a variety of solution areas including health information systems, human resources and payroll management systems and insurance claims and risk management.

"These firms are delivering real application innovation using EasyAsk as a competitive advantage in their solutions and are delivering Watson-like natural language ease of use to their customers today," said Craig Bassin, CEO of EasyAsk.  "We enjoyed watching IBM's Watson extend the benefits of natural language to win on Jeopardy!.  EasyAsk's vision has been to provide NLP solutions for many years.  We are proud of these and the many other examples in which EasyAsk has delivered real-world natural language solutions to customers.  We have many successful OEM partners and hundreds of successful end users in business operations, e-commerce and customer relationship management."

The EasyAsk natural language technology combines advanced linguistic processing techniques to derive the underlying meaning of questions with a deep understanding of the application data to deliver precise, relevant results. EasyAsk breaks language down into its most basic elements, analyzes those elements to distill the true meaning of a given question, and pulls the answer from the underlying data source. In simpler terms, as Watson was able to answer questions and win on Jeopardy, EasyAsk understand the intent of the question, as well as the content of the data to deliver prompt answers.

Case studies portraying a number of these innovative solutions using EasyAsk can be found on the EasyAsk website.

Siemens Medical Solutions

Siemens Medical Solutions, a division of Siemens AG, is one of the largest healthcare industry suppliers in the world. The company is known for bringing together innovative medical technologies, healthcare information systems, and management consulting and support services to help customers achieve tangible, sustainable clinical and financial results.

EasyAsk powers the Siemens Express Query toolset with Siemens INVISION health information system.  EasyAsk provides a user-friendly, integrated self-service data search and analysis that allows business users to ask natural language questions in everyday English such as: "List patients discharged more than 90 days ago and have not made payments" and "Compare the total gross pay and projected gross pay by department for active employees."

According to Monica Sharp of Siemens, "Natural language is full of complexities, nuances and exceptions, and EasyAsk is able to handle all of these challenges, producing intelligent results with ease, accuracy and speed."

Personnel Data Systems

Personnel Data Systems (PDS) is a leading developer of a web-based human resource and payroll system offering the highest level of leveraged technologies, and world-class client support services.  PDS Vista HRMS (Human Resource & Payroll Management Systems) is a feature-rich, completely integrated human resource, benefits administration and payroll software application that enables organizations to minimize the time invested in administrative HRMS/payroll activities by streamlining and automating HRMS and payroll processes and facilitating strategic decision-making capabilities.

EasyAsk provides integrated search and analysis where managers and users identify critical information using easy, English questions such as, "List name and leave available by accrual code" and "List employee benefits by benefit plan code and employee monthly cost."   Within Vista, you can ask questions and EasyAsk does the rest automatically and dynamically - translating your question to data inside the Vista database and formatting the result to your desire.

Ceridian

Ceridian is a leading global business services company that provides reality-based KnowHow to take the guesswork out of impacting your organization's bottom line. Ceridian HR/Payroll integrates and automates internal processes, reporting and information distribution, providing HR administrators with a comprehensive solution that also includes time management and self-service options.

EasyAsk's natural language technology expanded the search and reporting capabilities of Ceridian HR/Payroll, providing its human resources (HR) customers the ability to ask business questions in plain English– "list employees, current job and current salary by department and full name" – and get results in any format including spreadsheets, business graphics, reports or files.  In addition, with EasyAsk, administrators can access and search more than 200 production-ready reports that can be easily tailored to individual preferences.

GenSource

GenSource Corporation is the premier software solutions provider of feature rich claims administration systems for fully integrated or stand-alone processing of workers' compensation, liability, and non-occupational disability claims.  GenSource has revolutionized the Claims Management industry by offering innovative claims management products with exceptional value and highly responsive client support services.

Within the GenSource solutions, EasyAsk provides a rich, intuitive interface which allows application end users the power to search across a large volume of risk information using English-like questions such as, "show total risk value for workers compensation by claim holder."  Via EasyAsk, claims adjusters and risk managers can identify claim trends, solve problems and ultimately improve the bottom line on their own.

About EasyAsk

EasyAsk is radically changing the speed and ease of how people find information through the company's ground-breaking natural language search and query software.  EasyAsk software products go far beyond traditional search, allowing users to simply ask questions in plain English and receive highly tuned results on demand.  The EasyAsk eCommerce Edition uses this unique technology to deliver an industry leading website search, navigation and merchandising solutions that boosts online revenue through increased conversion rates, better customer experience and agile merchandising.  EasyAsk Business Edition revolutionizes enterprise decision-making providing self-service information access and business intelligence with easy, low-cost deployment and a unique natural language interface that extends information throughout the organization.

Based in Burlington, Massachusetts, EasyAsk has long been a leader in natural language information analysis and delivery software. Customers such as Gap, Coldwater Creek, Hewlett Packard, Lands End, Lillian Vernon, Aramark, , JJill, Nedbank, BNP Paribas, TruValue, Siemens, Hartford Hospital, Ceridian, JoAnn Fabrics and Harbor Freight Tools rely on the EasyAsk software products to run their business and e-commerce operations daily.  For more information, please visit EasyAsk.

For Further Information Please Contact:

Paul Hirsch for EasyAsk; 925-736-0976 office, 510-499-2589 mobile

SOURCE EasyAsk