The engine, known as SYLSemantics, automatically understands synonyms and relationships, allowing it to consider a much broader portion of content when evaluating a search request.

The three-and-a-half-year development programme behind SYLSemantics has been co-funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation.

The initial development was done by Codec, a Wellington company that specialised in bespoke software development and integration. In July, Codec merged with RHE Infrastructure, once part of the former RHE Group, to form SYL Enterprise Search.

"This has allowed us to bring the product to market," says SYL Enterprise Search chief executive Sean Wilson. "We found we had similar clients, which led to the merger. We rebranded the Codec development as SYLSemantics. It was launched as an enterprise search engine, but it is more like an information access tool. SYL reaches into any text document and creates its own semantic index, which is used for aggregating information."

SYLSemantics is based on Linux and Java.