Franz Inc. Acknowledged as a Leader for Knowledge Graph Solutions

Lafayette, Calif., June 23, 2020 — Franz Inc., an early innovator in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and leading supplier of Semantic Graph Database technology for Knowledge Graph Solutions, today announced that it has been named to The 100 Companies That Matter in Data by Database Trends and Applications.  The annual list reflects the urgency felt among many organizations to provide a timely flow of targeted information. Among the more prominent initiatives is the use of AI and cognitive computing, as well as related capabilities such as machine learning, natural language processing, and text analytics.   This list recognizes companies based on their presence, execution, vision and innovation in delivering products and services to the marketplace.

“We’re excited to announce our eighth annual list, as the industry continues to grow and evolve,” remarked Thomas Hogan, Group Publisher at Database Trends and Applications. “Now, more than ever, businesses are looking for ways transform how they operate and deliver value to customers with greater agility, efficiency and innovation. This list seeks to highlight those companies that have been successful in establishing themselves as unique resources for data professionals and stakeholders.”

“We are honored to receive this acknowledgement for our efforts in delivering Enterprise Knowledge Graph Solutions,” said Dr. Jans Aasman, CEO, Franz Inc. “In the past year, we have seen demand for Enterprise Knowledge Graphs take off across industries along with recognition from top technology analyst firms that Knowledge Graphs provide the critical foundation for artificial intelligence applications and predictive analytics.

Our recent launch of AllegroGraph 7 with FedShard, a breakthrough that allows infinite data integration to unify all data and siloed knowledge into an Entity-Event Knowledge Graph solution will catalyze Knowledge Graph deployments across the Enterprise.”

Gartner recently released a report “How to Build Knowledge Graphs That Enable AI-Driven Enterprise Applications” and have previously stated, “The application of graph processing and graph databases will grow at 100 percent annually through 2022 to continuously accelerate data preparation and enable more complex and adaptive data science.” To that end, Gartner named graph analytics as a “Top 10 Data and Analytics Trend” to solve critical business priorities. (Source: Gartner, Top 10 Data and Analytics Trends, November 5, 2019).

“Graph databases and knowledge graphs are now viewed as a must-have by enterprises serious about leveraging AI and predictive analytics within their organization,” said Dr. Aasman “We are working with organizations across a broad range of industries to deploy large-scale, high-performance Entity-Event Knowledge Graphs that serve as the foundation for AI-driven applications for personalized medicine, predictive call centers, digital twins for IoT, predictive supply chain management and domain-specific Q&A applications – just to name a few.”

Forrester Shortlists AllegroGraph

AllegroGraph was shortlisted in the February 3, 2020 Forrester Now Tech: Graph Data Platforms, Q1 2020 report, which recommends that organizations “Use graph data platforms to accelerate connected-data initiatives.” Forrester states, “You can use graph data platforms to become significantly more productive, deliver accurate customer recommendations, and quickly make connections to related data.”

Bloor Research covers AllegroGraph with FedShard

Bloor Research Analyst, Daniel Howard noted “With the 7.0 release of AllegroGraph, arguably the most compelling new capability is its ability to create what Franz refers to as “Entity-Event Knowledge Graphs” (or EEKGs) via its patented FedShard technology.” Mr. Howard goes on to state “Franz clearly considers this a major release for AllegroGraph. Certainly, the introduction of an explicit entity-event graph is not something I’ve seen before. The newly introduced text to speech capabilities also seem highly promising.”

AllegroGraph Named to KMWorld’s 100 Companies That Matter in Knowledge Management

AllegroGraph was also recently named to KMWorld’s 100 Companies That Matter in Knowledge Management.  The KMWorld 100 showcases organizations that are advancing their products and capabilities to meet changing requirements in Knowledge Management.

Franz Knowledge Graph Technology and Services

Franz’s Knowledge Graph Solution includes both technology and services for building industrial strength Entity-Event Knowledge Graphs based on best-of-class tools, products, knowledge, skills and experience. At the core of the solution is Franz’s graph database technology, AllegroGraph with FedShard, which is utilized by dozens of the top F500 companies worldwide and enables businesses to extract sophisticated decision insights and predictive analytics from highly complex, distributed data that cannot be uncovered with conventional databases.

Franz delivers the expertise for designing ontology and taxonomy-based solutions by utilizing standards-based development processes and tools. Franz also offers data integration services from siloed data using W3C industry standard semantics, which can then be continually integrated with information that comes from other data sources. In addition, the Franz data science team provides expertise in custom algorithms to maximize data analytics and uncover hidden knowledge.

DOWNLOAD – Gruff

Gruff is the Knowledge Graph industry’s leading Graph Visualization software for exploring and discovering connections within data. Gruff provides novice users and graph experts the ability to visually build queries and explore connections as they developed over time.

Gruff produces dynamic data visualizations that organize connections between data in views that are driven by the user. This visual flexibility can instantly unveil new discoveries and knowledge that turn complex data into actionable business insights. Gruff was developed by Franz to address Graph Search in large data sets and empower users to intelligently explore graphs in multiple views including:

• Graphical View with “Time Machine” feature – See the shape and density of graph data evolve over time
• Tabular view – Understand objects as a whole
• Outline view – Explore the often hierarchical nature of graphs
• Query view – Write Prolog or SPARQL queries
• Graphical Query Builder – Create queries visually via drag and drop

Gruff’s  ‘Time Machine’ feature provides users an important capability to explore temporal connections in your data.  Users can see how relationships are created over time and are able to replay the evolving graph for new temporal based insights.

Key New Features and Updates in Gruff v7.4 – To see the full list – Release Notes.

• The new command “File | Connect to Gruff Demo Server” lets you try out Gruff on the “extended actors” database at a public AllegroGraph server that’s provided by Franz, when you don’t have an AllegroGraph server yourself. See the Example button in the query view and in the graphical query view for a few example queries. “Help | Animated Demo” also works there.
• The graphical query view has new grouper boxes for graph group graph pattens, either for a particular graph or for a graph variable.
• The graphical query view now has node filters for the SPARQL operators IN and NOT IN (for limiting a node variable to a particular set of values), for langMatches (for selecting only literals of a particular language), and for CONTAINS, STRSTARTS, and STRENDS (for finding literals that contain specified text). Also, the “bound” and “not bound” filters were broken, and the LIMIT and OFFSET values will now be included when saving a graphical query.
• Gruff can now connect to AllegroGraph servers through an HTTP proxy (as was possible with SPARQL endpoints already). See Global Options | Communications | HTTP Proxy.
• Additional triple file formats can now be loaded with the new commands “File | Load Triples | Load JSON-LD”, “Load TriG”, and “Load N-Quads Extended”. Corresponding new commands are also on the “File | Export Displayed Data As” child menu. Also, the new command “Global Options | Miscellaneous | Commit Frequency When Loading Triples” lets you control whether and how often commits will happen during loading.
• The query view’s “Create Visual Graph” button will now create link lines for additional SPARQL property path operators, namely InversePath ( ^ ) and AlternativePath ( | ). And it will draw the correct character for ZeroOrOnePath ( ? ). (See “Query Options | Show Links for Property Paths in Visual Graphs” for turning this off.)
• If the triple store defines label properties for predicates, then Gruff will now display those labels for the predicate objects as it has always done for nodes, as long as “Global Options | Node Label Predicates | Use Label Predicates for Node Labels” is on.
• When “Visual Graph Options | Node Labels | Show Full URIs on Nodes” is on, full URIs will be also displayed for the predicates in link labels. And full URIs will be shown in the legend as well.

Gruff Documentation

Franz’s CEO, Jans Aasman’s recent Forbes article:

There’s a fascinating dichotomy in artificial intelligence between statistics and rules, machine learning and expert systems. Newcomers to artificial intelligence (AI) regard machine learning as innately superior to brittle rules-based systems, while  the history of this field reveals both rules and probabilistic learning are integral components of AI.

This fact is perhaps nowhere truer than in establishing explainable AI, which is central to the long-term business value of AI front-office use cases.

Granted, simple machine learning can automate backend processes. However, the full extent of deep learning or complex neural networks — which are much more accurate than basic machine learning — for mission-critical decision-making and action requires explainability.

Using rules (and rules-based systems) to explicate machine learning results creates explainable AI. Many of the far-reaching applications of AI at the enterprise level — deploying it to combat financial crimes, to predict an individual’s immediate and long-term future in health care, for example — require explainable AI that’s fair, transparent and regulatory compliant.

Rules can explain machine learning results for these purposes and others.

Read the full article at Forbes

In 2009 Tim Berners-Lee presented his vision of the Semantic Web.  Here is his visionary TED Talk