Microsoft has today announced the acquisition of text-analysis service Equivio, for a rumoured $200 Million. Equivio provides machine learning technologies for eDiscovery and information governance.
Microsoft has acquired the text analysis company to help customers tackle the legal and compliance challenges inherent in managing large quantities of email and documents. Rajesh Jha, Corporate VP for Outlook and Office 365 said,
Microsoft is serious about providing customers with tools to manage the legal and compliance requirements that are key to responsible business practices. Office 365 includes robust eDiscovery and information governance capabilities today, and we’ll use Equivio’s machine learning technology to make these vital tools even more intelligent and easy to use in the months ahead. I am extremely excited about the innovative technologies and experienced team we’re bringing to Microsoft as we advance this important work.
Equivio’s text analysis software organizes sets of documents and emails in meaningful ways. For example, grouping near-duplicate documents, reconstructing email threads, clustering by subject, search, language detection and data mining. The company also has a coding software that you can train to find relevant or privileged documents.
Businesses and governments around the world generate enormous volumes of data every day. Sifting through that data to find what is relevant to a legal or compliance matter is costly and time consuming.
Detailing as to how Equivio may rescue organisations from the bulky legal compliance work, Microsoft explained how Equivio’s solution applies machine learning to help solve these problems. It enables users to explore large, unstructured sets of data and quickly find what is relevant. It uses advanced text analytics to perform multi-dimensional analyses of data collections, intelligently sorting documents into themes, grouping near-duplicates, isolating unique data, and helping users quickly identify the documents they need.
Microsoft says, that it will use Equivio’s machine learning technology to make Office 365’s current eDiscovery and information governance capabilities even more intelligent and easy to use in the months ahead.
