IBM announced its OmniFind Personal E-mail Search Tool (IOPES) that brings the power of semantics-based technology to e-mail search.

An excerpt from PC World:

The company reckoned that the tool improves on standard search tools because you don’t get irrelevant search results as with a simple text or keyword search. Common search concepts, such as dates, times, and phone numbers, are built into the software; additional search parameters, such as meeting requests or specific locations, can be defined and used on the fly without any programming expertise. Such user-defined concepts can be shared between individuals and used to build a more personalized search system, said IBM.

A collaborative project developed across its labs at California, Haifa, and Delhi, the product leverages the textual analysis technologies based on the Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA), an open-source framework.

Semantic search has its claim to attention in the field of Web search. The technology involves analysis of information on individuals such as addresses, phone numbers, and mapping these concepts to identifiable information. Since e-mail goes a long way as a means of communication and a personal repository, the data can be classified very effectively with semantic techniques.

The tool is free and available at IBM’s AlphaWorks site.

More information:

IBM unveils semantic search for corporate e-mail (InformationWeek)

IBM rolls out new search tool for e-mail (ComputerWorld)

IBM reveals semantic search tool (eFluxMedia)