CHEMISTRY

The CSIRO ICT Centre today announced that its enterprise search technology, P@NOPTIC, has been spun off to form a new company, Funnelback Pty Ltd. Funnelback is already used to power the search on Web sites of major Australian organizations such as the Australian Government Information Management Office, Westpac Banking Corporation, the Australian Stock Exchange, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ninemsn and the University of Sydney. Internationally, the search engine is also used by organizations such as the National Research Council of Canada, University of Staffordshire and the Scottish Care Commission. Funnelback is used by organisations to search for information contained in their Web sites, intranets, file-shares and databases. "Funnelback is a better search engine because of its superior ability to help users find the information they are looking for quickly and accurately," says Dr Stephen Kirby, Chairman of Funnelback Pty Ltd. CSIRO ICT Centre Director, Dr Alex Zelinsky, says that the formation of Funnelback Pty Ltd demonstrates Australia's ability to develop leading edge information and communication technologies and then to successfully bring them to the marketplace. "Our success has always been driven by the development of new and innovative ways to solve our customers' problems. Funnelback will continue in the same spirit, growing rapidly by exceeding their customers' needs," says Dr Zelinsky. Dr Geoff Garrett, Chief Executive of CSIRO, says that the decision has been taken to spin-out the P@NOPTIC technology into a newly created company called Funnelback. "It is our view that, with the technology in a company structure with good governance and management, we will create maximum impact for our research," says Dr Garrett. "It's also an example of successful commercialisation built on great science - which is what CSIRO's rejuvenation of its ICT research is all about." Funnelback will be led by former CSIRO Senior Manager, Commercialization, Mr Stuart Beil as its Chief Executive Officer, with Dr David Hawking, the driving force behind the development of P@NOPTIC at the CSIRO ICT Centre, as Chief Scientist. Funnelback will be based in Canberra and, at a launch tonight, will introduce its new board of directors which includes Dr Stephen Kirby as Chairman, Dr Alex Zelinsky, Mr Glenn Downey and Mr Rob Sale.