I want to find determine the website, types of products offered,
ticker symbol if any of the following are publicly traded companies,
as well as the value of the company and their current and projected
revenues. The companies I need this information for are: Brimstone AB,
C-4-U Ltd, Caesius Software, Inc, Cipher Systems,  ClearForest
Corporation, Docere Intelligence, Intelliseek, Inc, Megaputer
Intelligence, Inc, NexLabs Pte Ltd, Strategy Software, Inc,
Thoughtshare Communication, Inc, Wincite Systems LLC and WisdomBuilder
LLC.

Joel and other Google Answerers:

Well, there's no way anyone could responsibly answer this question in
the one hour time that Google allows a lock.  So what to do...?

So...here's a partial answer with information on three companies.  I
will post the rest later as a clarification.  But first, it would be
helpful to hear from folks.

From Joel, I'd like to know if this information fits the bill.  The
companies are largely private, and there is very little information
available on size or finances -- sometimes even the address is hard to
come by.  Will this be satisfactory?

From fellow Googlers, I'd like your comments, please -- does this seem
a fair way of going about things?

As for search strategy -- I used direct Google searches on the
individual company names, as well as information gathering from
non-Internet sources.


BRIMSTONE AB

http://www.brimstone.se/

From the website:

Brimstone AB develops applications that support the daily Business
Intelligence tasks. We offer our customers competitive knowledge
through software that helps foreseeing opportunities and risks in
their environment. Our applications target people that on a daily
basis handle information about competitors, partners, clients and
other actors and relations.

Our mission is to develop software applications that create better
basic data for decision-making for users that on a daily basis handle
business information and relations.

IS BRIMSTONE INTELLIGENCE FOR ME?
Brimstone Intelligence targets both Business Intelligence specialists
and novice users.
Orientate yourself in the business environment.
Understand your industry and your company's and product's place in it.
Rapidly access accurate structured and comprehensive business
information on any actor.
Keep track of relations within your (or your competitors) business
world.
An intuitive and easy-to-use client software for your Business
Intelligence tasks.

Other info:

Product review and recommendation at: 
http://www.downlinx.com/proghtml/308/30872.htm

No information on company size or revenue.

CAESIUS SOFTWARE INC

www.caesius.com 

From the website:

Caesius Software™, Inc. is leading a revolution enabling organizations
to gather and manage critical business information from the World Wide
Web. This Web information gathering process is earning its own labels
among industry analysts --"Web Harvesting", "Web Mining", or "Web
Farming". Caesius has developed a powerful award-winning product,
WebQL, automating this tedious process by systematically pinpointing
and extracting information from the Web for repurposing into readable
report formats or delivery to applications for additional processing.
This patent-pending technology automates the tedious process of Web
research and information extraction delivering significant business
benefits to companies and institutions of all sizes.

Founded in April 2000, Caesius Software has won critical acclaim for
its WebQL product from industry analysts and the press.

CRN Test Labs "Recommended Award", November, 2000 
Seattle Networks "Zurbie Award" for Best Technology Achievement,
September, 2001
PC Magazine "Finalist"- Technical Excellence Awards, November, 2001

Launched in March 2001, WebQL Enterprise Edition is now used by some
of the largest companies in the world to harvest the Web.

Caesius Software Inc.
6135 Seaview Dr NW
Suite 3A
Seattle, WA 98107-2628
Toll free: +1.800.750.8830
Toll: +1.206.443.6836
sales@caesius.com


Caesius Software was founded in April, 2000 by Ted Kubaitis and Kelvin
Chin to provide its customers the most advanced, comprehensive tools
to find, extract and manage data from the World Wide Web. Prior to
Caesius, Kubaitis worked at Microsoft, US West and the National Center
for Supercomputing Applications. Chin most recently worked with
technology startups to secure funding, develop business plans and
establish company infrastructures. Prior to that, Chin was with Cisco,
Bank of America and Ingres Corporation. A private company
headquartered in Seattle, Caesius develops and sells WebQL "Business
Edition" and WebQL "Enterprise Edition".  CONTACT: For Caesius
Software  Greg Ferrante, 206/714-0431 gferrante@caesius.com

Other information:

8/01 Employees 19 Financing Currently seeking a first round of $ 4
million to $ 5 million, after a seed round of $ 500,000 Investors
Individuals

Seattle start-up Caesius Software ("SAY-see-uhs") said it has begun
shipping WebQL, software selling for between $499 and $25,000 that
helps companies perform competitive analyses and market research on
the Internet without the need for programming. ...

10/2001  Greg Lauckhart was named vice president and chief technology
officer at Caesius Software

8/01  Caesius Software Inc., a Seattle company that provides software
for business intelligence, yesterday named Christopher Buckingham,
formerly of Attachmate Corp., president.

CIPHER SYSTEMS

http://www.cipher-sys.com/

FROM THE WEBSITE:

We are a leading worldwide consultancy and solution developer for
companies engaged in Competitive Intelligence or (CI). Competitive
Intelligence is a specific form of Knowledge Management (KM).

We teach and transfer skills to corporations so that they can know
what their competitors will do next, how to be productive, gain the
right skills, and how to innovate. We build and customize the most
widely used set of software solutions to aid in this vital work.

OTHER INFORMATION:Cipher Ranked #1 in Competitive Intelligence
Software

12/2000:  Cipher Systems' Knowledge.Works Competitive Intelligence
software scored higher than any of its peers in a 2000 study conducted
by Fuld & Company. Knowledge.Works scored significantly higher than 10
out of the 11 other software applications that were compared.

Cipher Systems
80 Glastonbury Boulevard
Glastonbury, CT 06033
USA
Telephone: 860-652-7438
Tel: 800-595-9763
Fax: 860-659-2339
or
Cipher Systems
1511 Ritchie Highway, Suite 200
Arnold, MD 21012
Telephone: 410-349-0537
Tel: 888-899-1523
Fax: 410-349-0948

About Cipher (www.cipher-sys.com) 

Cipher, established in 1996 and based in Annapolis, MD, is the pioneer
of innovative competitive intelligence and knowledge management
applications and consulting worldwide. Cipher's Knowledge.Works
product is a multi-platform database and workflow tool chosen by
intelligence professionals around the world.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by joel1357-ga on 12 Jun 2002 16:52 PDT

I was suprised at the length of time this question was locked up. I
appreciate what information is listed but it is by your own admission
far from complete. Jdog-ga you are correct, I did get these companies
from that site. I am going to list 3-6 questions so that I can get to
the bottom of all that I need on this subject. I will give a brief
synopsis of what I will be looking for now, and post them as questions
between 7:15pm to 8:15pm central standard time. My reason for stating
this here is that it hopefully will enable those researchers that
clearly know the level of depth that I have come to rely upon from
this forum to lock up the questions and give me the detailed responses
that I need, and which furthermore has caused me to tell my brothers,
other partners, employees in our firm and other business associates
all about this service. While an honest attempt may have been made to
give me complete data I am looking for much more. My brother's have
suggested that I could get these questions answered for less than the
$ 100 (some questions for far less) that I have continuously paid, and
I have countered that while that may be true in several instances I am
trying to set a standard where the people here can be compensated very
fairly (not wasteful spending) and recognize that I am a valuable
customer, keeping in mind that to keep me coming back for more that I
hopefully will get a little more effort from all involved which in the
end creates a mutually beneficial relationship.

I will be asking questions that have to do with the 13 companies
listed above as well as 140 other companies that were referenced in
the same article. I think they will be found in the 66 page document
they talk about. I will want to do a comparative analysis of them all
and basically will want someone to go through all the content and pull
it together in a brief succinct document. I will be asking other types
of in-depth question akin to those referenced above. Also, I will
restate this question again without requesting a refund from this one.
I will do this so that those individuals that have worked to get me
solid information can be compensated. Finally special thanks to
Missy-ga for your uncompromising commitment to integrity. I sincerely
appreciate your willingness to share your thoughts.

Thank You,
Joel

---

Clarification of Answer by davidsar-ga on 12 Jun 2002 17:13 PDT

Thanks to Joel and others for their comments.  I consider myself
appropriately chastised.  I'd like to ask a favor or two:

-Joel, if you'd be so kind, please reject my earlier answer.  It
wouldn't be right, and I wouldn't feel good, accepting a fee that
wasn't earned.

-Also Joel, if the three descriptions I provided weren't adequate,
than any specifics as to what more you would like would be welcome by
me and I'm sure, by others who answer your questions.

 --Google, if Joel's otherwise occupied and doesn't withdraw the fee,
perhaps you could do it administratively.

And my apologies to all who understood, better than I did, what the
guidelines do and don't allow.  I promise to give them a more thorough
reading.

I came accross the same problems you're talking about while answering,
which is why I decided not to take the money and to leave it open for
another researcher. For C-4-U, the company you omitted, I couldn't
even find a website they owned that was operational

all these companies you mention wouldn't happen to be garnered from (
http://www.fuld.com/softwareguide/ ), would they?

davidsar,

I try not to make a habit of publicly chiding fellow researchers on
such matters, but since you asked...

We aren't required to finish an answer in an hour or less.  In fact,
our guidelines clearly say that we can renew our locks.

Having worked on and successfully answered several of Joel's questions
to his satisfaction, all of them complex and requiring anywhere from 1
1/2 to 3 hours or more, not including several clarifications to make
sure they were just right, I can assure you that   we are *not*
expected to answer difficult questions in an hour or less.

No, davidsar, what you have up here (barely a partial answer) is *not*
a fair way of going about things.  Your options are:

1) renew your lock at regular intervals and continue to work to ensure
a complete and accurate answer  -- or  --
2) if you do not have the time to properly care for your customer,
release the lock and let someone else who *does* have the time answer
it.

We do not operate under any time limits.  I happen to know that the
Researcher who had this question before you had it locked all day, and
was 5 minutes from posting his answer.  He missed renewing the lock by
just bare minutes away from being ready to post a full and complete
answer.

In the future, I would suggest that you compose your answer in a text
editor such as notepad or word, and cancel, then re-lock your question
at intervals to avoid posting an answer that falls short of what our
customers request.  When your answer is complete, you can copy and
paste your text into the answer box, instead of composing there.

Have a look in the Guidelines, specifically in the section discussing
locks, which reminds us that we may always re-lock a question once the
original lock expires.

--missy-ga

Hello Fellow Researchers,
I completely agree with missy-ga. Google has been saying the same from
time to time that we should read the guidelines closely so that we are
able to give the best to our clients for which we are paid for.
This has happened with me a couple of times that I just missed to
re-lock the question and somebody then answered it. So now I've made
it a practice that when the locking time is about to expire (my
timeout period is 5 minutes before the actual expire), I re-lock it.
All you've to do is just press Cancel and then again press Answer.
Believe me, this practice will save a lot of time, your effort and
above all, will help you from loosing your money. :)

I hope this friendly suggestion will help.

Cheers,
netcrazy

Thank you, Joel.  That really means a lot to me.  I'm glad to be of assistance.

missy-ga

Unfortunately, Joel, I had quite a bit of information on this question
already collated, and was just a few minutes from posting.  Only one
of the companies had actually replied with any financial information,
and all of the other companies are privately owned firms (They are not
required to disclose their financial status).

In the course of researching it, however, I missed the lock.  That is
the reason the question was locked for so long.  My apologies for
missing this, and I hope you get your question answered to your
satisfaction.

LazerFX-ga

Researchers should be allowed to lock for up to 2 hours IMO. 
Sometimes the Internet doesn't cut it, and you have to go to the
library instead.

It would be helpful to be able to have an uninterupted 90-minute time
period with which to do book research

Dear all,

If one has access to the right databases, it takes 5 minutes to look
up all of the information for the companies, and probably 45 minutes
to summarize. For existant private or public companies, all of the
requested information is out there.

I write this to say that a $100-question should be reponded by those
that in fact can supply the answer within the allotted amount of time.