Convera Announces RetrievalWare 8.1.

VIENNA, Va. -- Initial Software Capabilities Highlighted by Personalized Content Filtering, Alerting and Collaboration Features for Highly Customized Results

Convera Corporation (NASDAQ:CNVR), a leading provider of search and categorization software for enterprises and government agencies, today announced version 8.1 of the company's RetrievalWare search software platform. Version 8.1 is currently available on a limited basis with general release scheduled for next year.

Particularly effective for users who want to personalize searches to monitor large volumes of data, RetrievalWare 8.1(R) enables users to set customized content filters and alerts for the specific information they require to do their jobs, personalize their own unique query interface, and share search results from personal queries within Public Folders.

The new features in RetrievalWare 8.1 offer search efficiencies for both commercial and government customers:

--Personalized Content Filtering

To establish highly personalized, "always-on" search queries, a user can utilize the new Content Filter feature of RetrievalWare 8.1. For both commercial and government environments where vast amounts of information enter databases each day, a user can set very specific queries to automatically identify certain documents as soon as they enter the database. Key words selected by the user within the query immediately tag exact details within a document, isolate the document, and then route it to the user's Personal Folder.

As one example of this feature, editors within the news or publishing sector can now review content and set specific real time search queries for news areas of interest that readers of that publication would most want to see. Or, in pharmaceutical research applications, researchers can set news areas of interest on compounds that are most relevant to a drug being evaluated in a pre-clinical trial.

--Alerting

Working in tandem with the personalized content filtering feature, users can create or subscribe to a new Alert capability. This capability notifies users that the Content Filter has found a document matching a pre-set query and can optionally push that document to the waiting user's e-mail application or wireless PDA.

--Personalized Folder Sharing

The core personalization feature of RetrievalWare 8.1 is the option of saving queries within a user's Personal Folders. For researchers and analysts who perform regular search queries, but want to avoid repeatedly re-entering these queries, RetrievalWare 8.1 saves individual queries and matching results, eliminating the need to search for data that has already been extracted.

Users can also easily tailor how search results within Personal Folders appear on an interface. Saved query results can now be marked as "read or not read" by the user, or sorted by last viewed date, author, file or type.

--Collaboration

RetrievalWare 8.1 was designed for users to share and publish their own Personal Folders with other users in a Public Folder hierarchy.

In a scientific or research intensive environment, a researcher or analyst with subject matter expertise can use this feature to share their "Personal Document Collections." Access to an individual user's "expert queries and results" by other peer researchers and analysts can reduce time in knowledge discovery.

Convera's new Public Folder feature enables what the Gartner analyst firm has termed "Personal Knowledge Networks" (PKNs), which empower individual knowledge workers to take control of and use intellectual capital within their organizations without relying on or waiting for "top down" knowledge management projects.(1)

Future RetrievalWare 8.1 capabilities planned include:

--Web Services APIs for .NET application development, JSR168 WebLogic Portlet 

--New industrial and manufacturing taxonomies and the Convera Workbench 3.0

--New language detection, encoding detection and conversion, and Unicode compatibility

(1) French Caldwell, Enterprises Are Challenged To Benefit from "Grassroots" KM, October 19, 2004.

About Convera

Convera is a leading provider of mission-critical enterprise search and categorization solutions. Convera's RetrievalWare(R) solutions maximize return on investment in vast stores of unstructured information by providing highly scalable, fast, accurate and secure search across more than 200 forms of text, video, image and audio information, in more than 45 languages. More than 900 customers in 33 countries rely on Convera's search solutions to power a broad range of mission-critical applications including enterprise portals, knowledge management, intelligence gathering, profiling, corporate policy compliance, regulatory compliance, customer service and more. For more information, contact Convera at 800-788-7758, via e-mail at [e-mail] or on the Web at www.convera.com

This release, including any statements from Convera personnel, contains statements about Convera's future expectations, performance, plans, and prospects, as well as assumptions about future events. The reader is cautioned not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, as these statements are subject to numerous factors and uncertainties, including without limitation, business and economic conditions and trends; continued success in technological advances; possible disruption in commercial activities caused by terrorist activity and armed conflict, such as changes in logistics and security arrangements; reduced customer demand relative to expectations; competitive factors; and other risk factors listed from time to time in the company's SEC reports. Actual results may differ materially from our expectations as the result of these and other important factors relating to Convera's business and product development efforts, which are further described in Convera's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings can be obtained from the SEC's website located at www.sec.gov. Any forward-looking statements are based on information available to Convera on the date of this release, and Convera assumes no obligation to update such statements. The Convera design logo and the following are worldwide trademarks of Convera: Convera(TM), RetrievalWare(R), and Screening Room(R). The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.