More on UIMA

If you try to look for an explanation of UIMA, you are very likely to run across the following: "UIMA is an open, industrial-strength, scalable and extensible platform for creating, integrating and deploying unstructured information management solutions from combinations of semantic analysis and search components, ..."

They almost had me going there, nodding my head in agreement until I reached the word solution. Whenever I come across the word solution, it is guaranteed to either raise my hackles or to make my mind wander. This time I was in benign mood, so my mind started to wander.

Obviously the solution needs a large vat to contain it, and the unstructured information is probably on soggy pieces of paper floating around in the solution. The industrial-strength platform is made of steel, and stands above the vat so that people can stand up there and stir the solution. Of course the platform is modular so that it can be scaled to meet the needs of the stirrers.

Open? Does that refer to the open grid on the platform or the fact that the vat is open to allow the stirring rods to be put in. The search components are probably people scurrying around looking for more unstructured information to throw in the vat. The only thing that has me scratching my head is the semantic analysis. How can semantic analysis fit into an industrial scene like this?

Got any ideas?