Orbital Technologies   
Corporate Backgrounder   

 

January 1998   

Company History

Early in 1995 Orbital Technologies became one of the first companies to start building business tools using Java. Orbital's founders have since built a software business around the growing market demand for Java skills and applications.

Orbital's strategy is to identify business problems within the current corporate Intranet market and to provide world class solutions for them. Since completing initial seed finance in July 1997, Orbital has been focused on delivering business solutions for corporate customers using Java's unique server properties and advantages.

With Orbital Organik™, the first application in a range of Java servers from Orbital, organizations can fully leverage their workers' business knowledge via their Intranet. Today, Orbital's solutions are designed to help companies streamline their business processes, create new Internet–based revenue opportunities and achieve rapid returns on investment.

A privately held company, Orbital received early-round financing of $2.0 million from two investors: 3i and Scottish Development Finance.

Market Overview

The vast majority of the world’s business information today resides not on the Internet, but in workers' heads. The enormous growth of the World Wide Web and the development of new technologies, like search engines, have made corporate information sources far more accessible. However, this growth has also created new challenges for the users of this information, such as information overload, productivity losses due to aimless searching and an inability to easily find and access the right information. With nearly every major organization deploying Intranets, the problems of knowledge creation, sharing and its exploitation are becoming readily apparent. And despite technology advances, these problems have not yet been successfully addressed.

Until Organik…

 

Technology

Orbital's core technology provides solutions to: socio-organizational issues, context-driven information retrieval, finding and exploiting experts and their knowledge, implementing and maintaining information security and the provision of multiple channels of access to the corporate knowledge-base.

Orbital’s Java-based server lets users ask questions, using a graphical user interface, directly of the company's context-driven knowledge base without using complex search techniques. If the response is deemed inadequate the server will locate an appropriate advisor to supplement the answer, providing them with supporting material. This process builds a unique and comprehensive knowledge base and supports companies in the development of their competitive edge.

 

Innovative Solutions

Orbital's Organik server technology is the first comprehensive solution to:

  • link knowledge seekers with knowledge holders;
  • handle extended knowledge gathering processes;
  • integrate information from disparate sources such as Intranet sites, legacy communication systems and databases;
  • enable companies to create new markets and revenue opportunities by selling their expert knowledge

For the first time, with the help of the underlying Orbital technology, the server application can handle requests that require processing over an extended time period. This means that, even if the answer to a question is not immediately available, the server's goal-oriented agent platform will work away in the background to obtain a suitable answer.

 

Organik in Action

To illustrate this, imagine a sales person who has been asked by a customer about a new competitor. Do you want them to spend a few hours searching the Intranet, Internet or newsgroups to find relevant information or would you rather they spend time closing the sale?

With traditional Intranet technology, the sales person would have no choice but to search the Intranet, then the Internet, perhaps send a few mail messages, and finally in frustration pick up the phone and call the company sales manager to escalate the request throughout the organization.

Eventually an answer is received, but it is not automatically shared with the other sales people. Thus, when the next sales person asks the same question, the existing knowledge and experience of answering this same question is not leveraged.

With Organik, the question can be processed simply. For example, an e-mail is sent to organik@acmecorp.com which causes Organik to search its own knowledge base for similar questions. If an answer is available it is instantly e-mailed back to the sales person. If this answer does not exactly match the questioner's requirements it is returned to Organik.

At this stage, the server actively seeks out the "advisor" in your organization, providing this advisor with links to other information from the corporate network and other data sources. This rich environment helps the advisor fully answer the question rather than providing superficial and ambiguous one-line replies.

This knowledge is then fed back through the server and the knowledge grows Organikally…

How does Organik make this happen? The company’s founders have developed a powerful agent-oriented server platform that can handle extended goals and actions. Unlike standard web server technology, Organik can fulfill requests over milliseconds, minutes, hours or even days, always monitoring the goal and ensuring that the query is being serviced.

 

Corporate Strategy

Orbital Approach

Other companies focus on improving ways of publishing and searching information on the Intranet, or making enterprise data accessible from the Intranet. Orbital’s focus is to extract core business knowledge from a company's knowledge workers and then deliver it to knowledge consumers. This builds context-based knowledge solutions for particular business problems resulting in better service to corporate customers and savings in time and money and the development of an organizational memory.

Initial Target Market

Orbital’s initial target market comprises of knowledge-based organizations such as finance houses, management consultants, media and PR companies etc. These organizations, by and large, have all embraced the Intranet as a publishing medium and Orbital plans to extend their use of the Intranet to include knowledge capture and exploitation.

New Market Opportunities

Due to the flexibility of Orbital’s core technology, the market opportunities are enormous. For example, some applications that can immediately benefit from Organik include sales support, customer support, competitor knowledge and human resource management. Further opportunities exist for knowledge-rich companies who could package seeding packages of expert knowledge and make this available to other customers using Organik.

Sales Model

Orbital plans to sell through OEM and an extended distribution channel. These channels will be closely supported through a product management team located in the US. Orbital’s target market therefore is made up from Fortune 1000 Corporations. This will then be extended in the future to Global 2000 Corporations.

 

Products and Services

Orbital’s Organik is the first in the range of products that enable organizations to fully leverage valuable corporate information located outside the bounds of the corporate Intranet. The Organik server includes three primary components: a 100% Java server that handles and manages the transaction model; a standard web based interface; and an expert GUI to allow the advisor to make full use of the information gathered by the agents. In essence, questioners receive access to Organik via any standard web interface, e-mail client or web aware application.

 

Differentiators

Organizations are increasingly faced with new problems associated with capturing important information from human sources. Orbital provides a unique solution to this problem. There is also the concept of knowledge reusability. A key benefit offered is that instead of the advisor being pestered by the same questions, Organik reuses the answer for future questions without bothering the advisor unless the question is posed is sufficiently different from the one answered in the knowledge base.

 

Organik Product Benefits

- Improved decision-making

Answers to questions to support decision-making are easily available.

- Faster response to market change

Information on market development made quickly available to all users.

- Reduction in staffs training costs and self directed information discovery on demand

- Increased resilience to loss of key employees

The knowledge base grows to contain key employees most requested knowledge.

- Increased Productivity thus enhancing the employees’ sense of contribution.

Rapid Deployment

Unlike custom solutions, Orbital’s products are usable out-of-the-box and can be deployed in the enterprise in days, providing a rapid return on investment.

Scalability

Organik is designed to be scalable from the small workgroup to the world-wide corporation. Using the connection technology built into the product, knowledge bases in the US can communicate and share information with others in, for example, the UK.

Connecting People

Rather than simply connecting legacy information sources such as databases and web servers, Organik allows people to add value to the knowledge chain. By providing access to advisors in the organization, the product brings instant tailoring to your knowledge base via real people.

Prolonged Services

Organik is designed to allow it to process requests over prolonged period rather than simply returning a web page. This allows the user to feel confident that the task has been delegated and the goal-orientated agents are seeking out the answer on their behalf.

New Revenue Opportunities

Unlike most technologies that are cost-justified simply as a part of doing business; Organik can create new revenue sources. Leading companies are creating new business models that leverage valuable knowledge from advisors, previously inaccessible, and can create a new business asset, which can be used to enhance their competitive edge.

 

Financing and Directors

A privately held company, Orbital Technologies received $2.0 million in early-round financing from two of Europe's foremost investors: 3i PLC and Scottish Development Finance. Its Board of Directors includes: Kevin Dorren, CEO of Orbital Technologies; Alan Slater; CTO of Orbital Technologies and Calum Smeaton, COO of Orbital Technologies; Ian Ritchie, founder of Office Workstations Inc; Andy Davis, former CTO of Spider Systems.

 

Company Contact Details

Orbital Technologies Limited
Suite 670
111 North Market Street
San Jose
CA 95113

Tel: 408 367 6146
Fax: 408 938 3929

http://www.orbital-tech.com
info@orbital-tech.com

 

Copyright © 1998 Orbital Technologies. All rights reserved.