SA software start-up Memio Software aims to help people make sense of their lives by providing context to stored data with its offering, set for a November launch EVER wondered where a document on your desktop came from? What were its predecessors and successors? How do they differ? Who worked on this stuff? Who has seen it?

Organising documents, contacts and messages into folders, and composing long file names like "second proposal that Sue saw and Jerry commented on January 5 2003" will only get you so far. Searching for keywords returns loads of results, most of them irrelevant.

Content is not enough, and organising stuff is rigid and tedious.

"What we need is automated context. What we need is the flow of events. What we need are stories," says Memio Software founder Ben Zaaiman.

Memio`s new story technology records and reveals the links between documents, people, events and other real-world entities. The technology is built around a key concept: that these links and events should be recorded and shown as stories.

Zaaiman, who for the last three years has headed up the Softstart software incubator, based at the CSIR, formed Memio in late 2004, with the vision of helping people make sense of their lives through providing context to their stored data.

He contracted DotSlash, a professional development house already based at Softstart, to start developing the software for his product, using his own resources. Coding began in December 2004, and the plan is to cut the first version of Memio Private, intended for personal use, by the end of November.

Incidentally, DotSlash was recently incorporated into Memio Software.

BUT HOW IS IT DIFFERENT?

How is Memio`s product different from Google Desktop or the range of other content management offerings?

Zaaiman maintains these offerings remain content search engines, which provide no context to the content in the user`s life. "Our competitive advantage is that our product places a layer of historical context over this content," he says. Moreover, users are not required to maintain their document databases.

Memio Private will from end-November be downloadable free of charge from www.memio.net, but the display is limited to story details in the most recent three months, even though all content relevant to the search will be displayed. Memio Pro will retail for $39.95 and will have "unlimited story retrieval capabilities".

"Right now we`re focusing on getting more early beta users," indicates Zaaiman. For now, the Memio Private beta is only available for Windows XP and Microsoft Office users.

BEYOND THE PERSONAL

A Memio Team product will follow this offering in early 2006, software that will focus on a specific set of folders in a work context. It will be sold through a direct and channel sales strategy.

Zaaiman notes that this product will be tailored to various verticals, the first implementation of which would be for the legal fraternity, followed by financial services, the medical and media sectors.

He is confident of the interest in his product, noting that five venture capital firms gave him their business cards at the DemoFall conference in California in September, where the company was hand-picked as an exhibitor. "This means a lot in the venture capital world," he remarks. The company is now in discussion with various first-round venture capital providers.

One company also approached Memio about incorporating its technology into their own product range, and various Japanese firms were keen on the software`s potential for mobile applications.

The annual DemoFall conference is geared towards spotting technology innovation and technology trends, and has served as the launch pad for companies such as Palm, Handspring and US Robotics, helping them secure funding and establish business relationships with early adopter companies.

Zaaiman reveals that the next step in the company`s development is the planned launch of its international headquarters in the US by year-end, while maintaining the bulk of its development activities in SA.