Press Release

October 2005

Exalead Declares Search Now Easier, More Affordable for American Businesses

French Software Firm Brings First Unified Search Technology Platform to U.S.;
Introduces New Desktop Search Software

NEW YORK, October 31, 2005
After five years of success and wide-scale customer acceptance in Europe, Exalead, an innovative provider of search software designed to simplify all aspects of information access, today announced the availability of its unified search technology platform - exalead one:search - for American businesses. The exalead one:search platform serves as the foundation for Exalead's portfolio of integrated search products, from desktop to enterprise and the Web. Additionally, Exalead today announced the general availability of exalead one:desktop professional edition, the first software solution from the exalead one:search family of products.

While organizations of all sizes have come to recognize the value of search for critical decision making, many find today's search solutions to be too complex, costly and that they don't bring together results from different information sources on one desktop screen. Further, most solutions force users to adjust to them, not the other way around. The exalead one:search approach addresses these issues by providing business users with a more natural, simpler and satisfying way to find information. The company has also made the process of buying enterprise-level search software less complicated and more affordable.

"Business users need a better way to access information - whether it resides on a desktop, on a secure server or on the Web," said François Bourdoncle, cofounder and chief executive officer of Exalead. "The exalead one:search platform is being used by leading global organizations to let their employees conduct more accurate searches, identify subject matter experts, breakdown communications barriers and do their jobs better in ways that improve their companies' performance." Companies currently benefiting from Exalead technology include Air Liquide, AOL France, Astra Zeneca, BNP Paribas, Capgemini, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Danone Group, The Sanger Institute and several French and Italian government agencies.

Coinciding with its entry into the United States market, Exalead is launching version 4.0 of the exalead one:search platform. Its design takes advantage of 64-bit processor architectures and offers a range of advanced search capabilities and innovative navigational tools. Key features of exalead one:search 4.0 include:

- Quick installation: Lightweight software solutions are fully downloadable so indexing can begin in minutes. A wide range of file types and applications can be searched in little time.

- Platform-neutral: The exalead one:search platform supports a variety of 32- and 64-bit operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, UNIX® and Linux.

- Enterprise-class security: The search solution can be easily adjusted to comply with most company security policies. Exalead protects users' privacy by not keeping cached versions of older documents or recently visited files that have been deleted.

- Affordable, now and later: Exalead solutions typically do not require the considerable added expense of professional services to ensure proper installation and operation for greater affordability. Additionally, Exalead solutions are designed to scale with business needs, avoiding the need to purchase additional hardware or software. Production systems can also be effortlessly migrated to a different hardware or operating system platform if needed.

- Connectivity: A wide range of connectors are available for most industry standard information databases, including SQL, Lotus Notes, Livelink (Opentext) and Documentum.

"At Exalead we believe search should be conducted the way our brains work, by serendipity, with a system that helps us start a search in any way we like and then change our mind later on," Bourdoncle said. "The release of exalead one:search 4.0 makes that concept a reality, one best seen on our Web search at www.exalead.com, or by using the new exalead one:desktop professional edition, a unique desktop search solution that unifies searches of a PC, intranets and the Web."

Only exalead one:desktop delivers unified results no matter where a document resides. The software supports a wide range of document files and formats, including multimedia files, e-mail (Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes), Adobe PDF, in addition to popular database applications through the Professional Edition

Natural Navigation

A patented navigation system gives exalead one:desktop users the fastest way to find relevant information. Exalead?s navigation system and seamless integration with the exalead.com Web search engine offers ways to dig deeper on the Web and not rely solely on ranking algorithms that are optimized for most people, but not necessarily for the user conducting the search.

Users can enter relevant search terms and then easily narrow or broaden search results by clicking on related terms, familiar classification features like e-mail sender, document type, date or language. At any point during a search, users can refocus a search through a single click on a result's "active ID card." For instance, one can display all e-mail sent by a given person in one click on that person's name, regardless of the original query and then start refining the query again from a new angle.

A document book-marking feature lets users save relevant documents, including e-mails, contacts and Web documents during a search session that they can come back to later. This caddie can be kept across search sessions and prevents users from having to click away from the results page.

Search Visually in Real-Time

Exalead's real-time indexing technology instantly reacts to any document, including e-mails being created, updated, or deleted, so that a user can always have access to the most up-to-date information. A document preview pane shows the contents of each search result, including PDF documents, with all the search terms highlighted, thereby eliminating the need to open a document to evaluate its relevancy.

The exalead one:desktop offers advanced and exclusive search features, including phonetic ("sounds like"), approximate and fuzzy matching searches. Now users don't need to know the exact spelling of their search query to find relevant documents. Additionally, when a document is not written in a user's native tongue, exalead one:desktop automatically proposes to translate the document in the preview pane.

Availability

The complete range of Exalead search solutions is currently available for download from www.exalead.com. The exalead one:desktop software is the first available product based on the exalead one:search platform 4.0 and is available for download on the company Web site. The exalead one:workgroup, exalead one:enterprise and exalead one:datacenter products are scheduled for general availability later this year.

Media Contact:
Euro RSCG Magnet
212-367-6804
exaleadpr@eurorscg.com