Office software Reviews
13,661 Reviews

Ergo beta search-and-collaboration software

£29 inc VAT

Manufacturer: Ergo

Our Rating: We rate this 4 out of 5 User Rating: Our users rate this 4 out of 10

By | 18 December 07

Invu's Ergo is a new type of search-and-collaboration software that doesn't merely find documents on your desktop or online, but also presents them in an innovative style and allows you to mark up pages to send to other people.

Ergo is a new type of search-and-collaboration software that doesn't merely find documents on your desktop or online, but also presents them in an innovative style and allows you to mark up pages to send to other people.

Related Articles

Invu Ergo uses proprietary software to display results, as well as engines such as Microsoft desktop SQL to produce searches. You can download a beta of Ergo right now by clicking here.

Installation of the Invu Ergo beta is fairly seamless and the interface is extremely slick and effective: after selecting various search and social-networking sites to use, as well as the desktop, you enter in a word or phrase and the results are displayed in a number of visual formats.

See also:

Can Ergo steal Google's crown as the king of search?

These visual displays, such as 3D cubes, spheres or tree maps, provide an instant cue as to the relevance of Ergo's searches as well as potential links between results.

While the actual process of searching can be quite slow, especially when searching a local hard drive, Ergo is very quick at organising those results into a graphic representation.

These 'intelligroups' mean that information is presented in meaningful and clearly labelled clusters that make it much easier to understand the relations between Ergo's search results.

When you have selected links, these can be previewed from within Ergo or opened in the target application (Internet Explorer or Windows Explorer).

Ergo loads what it calls a Thumbflow carousel, where pages can be scrolled or, alternatively, viewed as a list. In addition, it is possible to annotate pages which can then be saved to disk, printed or emailed to a third party.

Some of these features, such as the erasing comments, were occasionally awkward to work with in this beta, which results in Ergo being slightly harder to use than it should be. However, any notes can be moved around on the page to be stored where you need them.

You can download a beta of Ergo right now by clicking here. The release candidate is due in January 2008. Get reviews of the latest IT products for your business at Business Advisor.

Ergo Expert Verdict »
Post Review

Reviewed by Gundam_X on Monday 24 December 2007

4 star rating

Duration of ownership: 4 days

Strengths:
Over all very well laid out, good gadgets. Fits in well with Vista. Very good search engine. Very well deisgned! Easy to use and pick-up very quickly.

Weaknesses:
I only found one and that all depends on the user which is very complex answer's but that isn't a weakness. It is called be overly good at its job. So no weaknesses

Overall Evaluation:
Fabulously designed, easy to use. would be very good use to most people. Especially with the Vista age rearing its... head

Reviewed by MikeRNev on Thursday 20 December 2007

3 star rating

Duration of ownership: 1 days

Strengths:
Looks good, integrates well into Vista. Searches quite fast. Useful controls for relevancy and zooming, easy to move around the page.

Weaknesses:
A complex answer to a simple need, a little over engineered. Not sure I would regularly use it over a long period. It doesn't seem to give me any results from my local drives.

Overall Evaluation:
Initial impression is that it looks and feels great to use. But it seems an incredibly complex way of searching. But I have only just started to use it and so I will give it a longer try before final judgement.

Reviewed by alloasaint on Thursday 20 December 2007

4 star rating

Duration of ownership: 1 days

Strengths:
I downloaded the program with ease, quickly up and running and using the search engine with great ease. The ability to make notes by either typing or using a graphic pen was a great added bonus.

Weaknesses:
Haven't found any weaknesses yet. I would have expected to find some straight away, but no, all I can do is praise the designers right now.

Overall Evaluation:
I think this program will be a great success from the program right through to design and espescially with the ease of use from the download to the first search. Well done!!

1GHz processor
512MB RAM (1GB recommended)
Windows Vista
40MB hard disk space
  • Ease of Use: We give this item 8 of 10 for ease of use
  • Features: We give this item 9 of 10 for features
  • Value for Money: We give this item 8 of 10 for value for money
  • Overall: We give this item 8 of 10 overall

These criticisms aside, the heart of Ergo represents some exciting developments for the next stage in searching and organising documents. Potential OEM deals could mean that PC manufacturers will start including the program on new machines, and this will provide a new approach for collating data from a number of sources.

There are currently no price comparisons for this product.
  • Invu SentryStick review

    Invu SentryStick

    SentryStick is a hardware USB stick and software solution that gives complete control over what happens on a PC

  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 review

    Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1

    Although not without problems, Microsoft Visual Studio is the premier IDE for developing applications with the Microsoft .Net Framework and at least a contender for the best Windows-hosted C/C++ IDE.

  • Adobe After Effects CS4 review

    Adobe After Effects CS4

    Just when you thought there was nothing more to add to After Effects, Adobe has crammed a large number of new features and enhancements into the CS4 release of its flagship visual effects and motion graphics software.

  • Google Chrome review

    Google Chrome

    Despite some beta issues, Google's streamlined and speedy Google Chrome web browser offers strong integrated search and an intriguing alternative to Firefox and Internet Explorer.

  • iTunes 11 review

    iTunes 11

    iTunes 11 is a major upgrade for Apple's music playing and synching software. Here's our iTunes 11 review.

Share this article

Related Products


Comments

Send to a friend

Email this article to a friend or colleague:

PLEASE NOTE: Your name is used only to let the recipient know who sent the story. Both your name and the recipient's name and address will not be used for any other purpose.