Aussie search company goes guerilla on Oracle

Representatives from Australian enterprise search vendor ISYS attempted a guerilla marketing stunt at Oracle OpenWorld this week, using large inflatable balloons and video projections.

The enterprise search vendor, which competes with Oracle's INSO document filter products, flew large inflatable balloons with the words INSO crossed out in front of the Moscone Center in San Francisco before being asked to move on by "Larry's Storm Troopers" [ie Moscone Center Security].

Scott Coles, managing director at ISYS said the company was attempting to tackle a duopoly between Oracle and Autonomy's Keyview product.

Oracle's INSO was a text extraction and viewing technology that ran under the covers when iPhone or Blackberry users, for example, attempted to view PDF files. Apple and Google were among the large technology firms licensing INSO from Oracle.

But Coles said customers were warming to a third choice - with Sybase and Docstor the latest to license ISYS' technology.

With Oracle having a hand in such a wide variety of technologies, the ISYS stunt left more attendees confused than enlightened, but Coles said it was all in good fun.

"ISYS gets cool after 22 years!," he joked. "Mainly it was an excuse for us to have some fun. We've been too boring!"