Attensa has a straightforward mission: To get the right information to the right people at the right time. Although Attensa's goal may not be entirely original, Eric Hayes -- who co-founded the company in 2005 -- believes his company can get it right on all three counts.

Attensa's software works by pushing RSS or managed Web feeds to specific users and groups behind the firewall, allowing knowledge workers in the enterprise to cherry-pick just the info they want. On the back end, the Linux-based Attensa Feed Server gathers feeds in the background, and gives IT administrators control of where those feeds go. Meanwhile, on the client side, Attensa has software for Windows, Mac, and BlackBerry, plus plug-ins for Outlook, Lotus SameTime IM, and others. Conveniently, the server takes care of syncing, so that if a user reads something on a BlackBerry, that same item is marked as having been read in Outlook as well.

Behind this basic infrastructure is AttentionStream, the real substance of Attensa's IP. AttentionStream prioritizes content based on a user's behavior, pushing that information to the top of the reader. "AttentionStream has the ability to intelligently and automatically pull information that is important to the user when they want it and push away information that isn’t important when they don’t want it," Hayes says.

Enterprise RSS readers, such as Attensa Feed Server and Attensa for Outlook, also help tune and prioritize feed streams. Much like TiVo’s user-controlled program weightings and suggestions, Attensa prioritizes internal and external data based on user behavior, monitoring activities such as feed selections and time spent reading a feed, as well as articles tagged, deleted, and forwarded. Weighted rankings then push key data to the top of your workgroup’s display stack.

May 8 - 10

Orlando

We're off to WES 2007 the yearly three-day event where BlackBerry software development partners, aspiring partners, carriers, BlackBerry admins and power users gather to explore what's new in wireless security, administration tools and end-user support for wireless applications. Look us up in booth 307.