VIENNA, Va. – The Associated Press will use software from Convera Corp. to categorize, search and distribute its multimedia news content as part of a major technology initiative, the companies announced Monday.
AP and Convera also will work to tailor the software, called RetrievalWare, to address broader needs of the publishing industry, and will cooperate on marketing and distributing products that are tailored for the publishing industry.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
AP, the world's oldest and largest news agency, said its initiative, called "electronic AP" or "eAP," is expected to produce a new generation of content management and distribution systems for newspaper publishers and other subscribers.
Convera specializes in products that enable the search and categorization of information across text, video, image and audio formats. Its software will make it easier for AP's thousands of daily newspaper, radio, television and online customers to specify the news they want to receive and obtain it using a Web-based delivery network, the companies said in a news release.
We're excited to be working closely with Convera to realize our vision of eAP as we continue to make the AP the essential global news company," said John Reid, AP's senior vice president of services and technology.
Pat Condo, CEO of Convera, said: "The breadth and diversity of the AP's news offerings represent an excellent application for RetrievalWare's ability to organize and categorize large volumes of multimedia, multilingual content."
AP, founded in 1848 and headquartered in New York, is a source of print news, photos, graphics, audio and video for more than a billion people a day. Its president and chief executive, Tom Curley, took over a year ago with a pledge to remake AP's technology.
Convera, based in Vienna, Va., was created in 2000 in a merger of Excalibur Technologies Inc. and Intel Corp.'s interactive media services division. It has 900 customers in 33 countries.
contact: Jack Stokes at 212-621-1720
