IBM Licenses Excalibur XRS for Image Retrieval in DB2; IBM to Enhance Retrieval Functionality of DB2 with Excalibur's Adaptive Pattern Recognition Technology

Business Wire, Feb 7, 1995

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 7, 1995--Excalibur Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:EXCA) announced Tuesday that they have entered into a joint development and distribution agreement with IBM to integrate Excalibur XRS Image Retrieval Server with certain IBM DATABASE 2 (DB2) platforms including OS/2 and UNIX.

The new image-enabled DB2 product includes Excalibur's MediaScript which allows users to store, index and retrieve images based on their content, rather than traditional methods of "tagged" retrieval. Using this technology, DB2 users will be able to "fuzzy search" and find image data, such as faces, trademarks or fingerprints, using electronic images as clues.

Excalibur's MediaScript is the only commercially available development environment that provides multimedia indexing and searching solutions. MediaScript allows rapid development of distributed, client/server solutions. The Excalibur XRS Image Retrieval Server can interpret the powerful MediaScript language or use the scripts to automatically generate C source code for custom image recognition server development. MediaScript includes access to Excalibur's indexing and searching technology in addition to its image processing functions.

"Many of our customers need image retrieval in their DB2 applications, and IBM is responding to those needs by adding advanced image retrieval to DB2," said Steve Mills, general manager, IBM Software Solutions Division. "We are giving our customers a competitive edge by providing fast, flexible access to image data because Excalibur XRS delivers sophisticated high-speed indexing and retrieval which complements the search techniques of IBM's Query By Image Content (QBIC) technology and SearchManager text retrieval software."

Image Retrieval

Until now, finding the right image from a large image database has been costly and difficult. Traditionally, each image would need to be carefully studied and indexed manually based on data such as subject, title or some other identifying reference. The drawbacks are numerous: the high cost of manual entry; the inherent bias of the operator at time of entry; and changing indexing terms and keywords over time.

Traditional alphanumeric retrieval methodologies, which work well for highly structured information, have been stretched to meet the new challenge of retrieving digitized multimedia information. The limitations of the traditional approach prevent users from effectively managing their image databases of stock photographs, maps, medical images, trademarks or any number of graphic materials that are critical to a business or specific application.

Excalibur has pioneered a new paradigm for the retrieval of images. Based on Adaptive Pattern Recognition Processing (APRP), Excalibur XRS employs a neural network method that identifies binary patterns which have been extracted from the digital information. To match and retrieve images with Excalibur XRS, "clue" images are entered into the system and processed using the same pattern analysis used to index the image database. The binary patterns of the image clue are then compared to the image database index and a hit list of matching images is returned.

"Excalibur's vision has always been the same -- to change the way people store and retrieve information," said Mike Kennedy, president and CEO of Excalibur. "Now, we are seeing the world's leading computer company bringing this breakthrough technology to its flagship database technology. This agreement will expose Excalibur's APRP technology to a potential market that numbers in the millions and will strengthen our efforts to achieve our vision."

The agreement to integrate Excalibur XRS Image Retrieval Software into DB2 comes just seven months after IBM announced that Excalibur's TRS Text Retrieval Server will be integrated to IBM's SearchManager product. IBM customers will now have a full array of content-based retrieval options for managing all types of data including images, graphics and video in addition to text.

About IBM Software Solutions Group

IBM's world-class relational database family is built on the industrial strength foundation of DB2. Eighty percent of the Fortune 500, including all of the top 100 companies rely on DB2 database solutions to manage data on mainframes, minicomputers, RISC workstations and personal computers. IBM is the largest provider of database management software in the industry today.

About Excalibur Technologies

Headquartered in San Diego, Excalibur Technologies Corporation is a leading software developer dedicated to improving the way industry manages and retrieves information. The company's pattern recognition technology - called Adaptive Pattern Recognition Processing (APRP) - forms the basis for its turnkey applications and toolkits that allow people to index and retrieve information in numerous data types ranging from text and image to full-motion video.

The Excalibur XRS development environment offers a core functionality and tools for any independent software vendor, systems integrator or value added reseller designing software applications for the management of multimedia and text information. Excalibur XRS licenses are available as C object libraries and index servers for a wide range of data types across open systems today. Excalibur has over 500 customers internationally and sells through channels organization consisting of resellers, integrators, and strategic partner relationships. Excalibur was founded in 1980 and is a publicly held corporation trading under NASDAQ (EXCA).