Attivio has secured a U.S. patent for its unique inverted index, the secret sauce behind the company’s Unified Information Access platform that allows it to access, join and query all data types.

U.S. Patent No. 8073840, which you can read here, was issued on December 6, 2011. The AIE platform allows users and developers to access and join both structured and unstructured data dispersed among previously silo’ed databases and systems while maintain the relationships between data elements, Attivio’s Sid Probstein explained to Wikibon CEO and Chief Analyst Dave Vellante:

Platforms that give developers, applications and end-users access to all corporate data, regardless of form, are becoming incredibly important as more and more unstructured data is created both inside and outside the firewall. Currently, 80% of all corporate data is of the unstructured variety, and that percentage is only rising as Big Data sources like social media and machine-generated data proliferate.

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Enterprises should seek the expertise of professional services providers to assist in performing data “audits” to identify all the data created, collected and stored inside the organization. Once identified, enterprises can then analyze their data resources to determine how best to leverage them for competitive advantage using platforms such as AIE.

Enterprises that fail to include unstructured data – such as text contained in emails, social media posts, warranty agreements, recall announcements, and other critical documents – in their business intelligence and data analytics processes will make under-informed and potentially harmful decisions that negatively impact business operations.