AskJeeves to debut search product for corporations

PALO ALTO: Internet search company Ask Jeeves Inc. on Monday will unveil a

software product designed to help corporations fine tune their online customer

service and develop intranets by locating more data from disparate systems.

The move extends the push into the corporate market by Ask Jeeves, which last

year unveiled its first enterprise search product. Jeeves, like many Internet

search companies, is increasingly focused on selling software to corporations,

which are seeking better ways to integrate volumes of information, often stored

in different places and in different computer formats.

"We've been spending the last year or so talking to our customers and

trying to better understand what issues they are wrestling with," said

James Speer, product manager for the company's enterprise software division,

Jeeves Solutions. "All of them have gone through a tremendous buildup of

technology and now have to deal with a rat's nest of different

technologies."

The company said one key feature of its new software, called JeevesOne

Enterprise, will be the ability to answer questions by pulling information from

multiple sources and integrating it.