BusinessWire
November 08, 2005 07:07 AM US Pacific Timezone

Bitform Releases SDK That Provides Precise, Robust Access to Unstructured Data Locked inside Complex File Formats

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 8, 2005--Bitform Technology Inc.: Bitform Extract SDK offers the best solution for reliable content extraction of Microsoft Office and other critical file types, supporting applications in content security, content inspection and regulatory compliance.

Bitform Technology Inc. today announced the availability of Bitform Extract SDK, a software component for high-performance access to the contents - including text, metadata and content structure information - of the most important file types used by global organizations. Cross platform support and a flexible API make Bitform Extract SDK a powerful tool for rapid integration with a broad range of solutions that need access to file content. Target applications include analysis and inspection for security and compliance solutions and text extraction for indexing, categorization and other search, knowledge management and content management processes.

"We've tested Extract SDK and are very impressed with the product's capabilities. From our perspective, Bitform has moved to the leading edge among commercial filtering technologies," said Scott Olechowski, Vice President, Business Development at PostX Corporation. "Bitform has done a great job addressing the challenge of delivering a content extraction engine that offers both high performance and high accuracy."

On the surface, content extraction can be confused with "text filtering". It's a relatively simple task to develop a program that opens files and treats every element inside as text. This approach can produce impressive performance figures with regard to gigabytes of files processed per hour, but precision and accuracy suffer tremendously. Complex binary file formats such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF contain thousands of internal structures that can either be bypassed by a simple text filter - thus causing incomplete analysis of content - or can be incorrectly treated as text - thereby producing false positives. Bitform's approach of completely modeling supported file types and taking into account the unique structure of specific formats produces extremely high precision with performance that meets market needs in multiple application segments.

"When you consider some of the application areas receiving tremendous focus, such as compliance and content security, you can appreciate how critical it is to ensure you're doing a thorough job of analyzing the information inside these common file types," says Keslin. "Not supporting embedded objects or skipping data inside a compressed sub-structure in a document isn't acceptable."

For security, policy and compliance applications, Bitform Extract SDK can be combined with Bitform's metadata and hidden information inspection tool, Bitform Secure SDK, to provide the most comprehensive content extraction, inspection and remediation solution on the market.

Bitform Extract SDK is available immediately.

About Bitform

Bitform develops software components that leverage the company's expertise in unstructured data. The company focuses on the unique challenge of accessing, managing and securing information locked inside complex file types, and delivers enabling technologies that can be adopted for use across a broad spectrum of applications. Bitform offers these solutions via OEM licensing agreements with commercial software developers, appliance manufacturers and application service providers. For more information, visit www.bitform.net.

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