Factiva-Verity Agreement: A Conversation with Greg Gerdy
On October 28th Factiva and Verity announced an agreement whereby Factiva�s content, taxonomies and taxonomy expertise are to be marketed to users of Verity's intellectual capital management solution, K2 Enterprise. Last Friday I talked with Greg Gerdy, Factiva�s VP of Channel Marketing, about the partnership. The agreement fits squarely with Factiva�s strategy of partnering with technology companies that will enable it to integrate its business information with enterprise workflow. Factiva already works with platform providers of the caliber of IBM and Microsoft, portal companies like Plumtree, and application providers to vertical markets like MediaMap and Alacra. As Factiva finds itself moving away from pure content sales, contacts with customers� IT groups become increasingly important. A big plus to the agreement is Verity�s established connections in this part of the enterprise. But how will the agreement affect Factiva Fusion, Factiva�s own �intellectual capital management� solution? Grass roots co-operation is apparently budding between the Factiva and Verity sales groups, where some live opportunities are already in play. For now, the K2 Enterprise or Factiva Fusion question is being resolved at this level on a case-by-case basis. Under the agreement, Factiva�s content, general and pharmaceutical taxonomies, and the services of Factiva Client Solutions will be offered to K2 Enterprise customers. Gerdy also expects that Factiva sales people will actively search out opportunities for Verity and Factiva to work together, with packaging of Factiva and Verity products a possibility at a later date. LexisNexis taxonomies and �concept definitions�, of course, are also promoted by Verity. That agreement, says LexisNexis, remains unchanged.