Tales from the Terminal Room

November 2002, Issue No. 37

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Tales from the Terminal Room ISSN 1467-338X
November 2002, Issue No. 37
Editor: Karen Blakeman
Published by: RBA Information Services

Tales from the Terminal Room (TFTTR) is a monthly newsletter, with the exception of July and August, which are published as a single issue. TFTTR includes reviews and comparisons of information sources and search tools; updates to the RBA Web site Business Sources and other useful resources; dealing with technical and access problems on the Net; and news of RBA's training courses and publications.


In this issue:

  • Online Information 2002
    • EuroInfopool
    • Bureau van Dijk - OSIRIS and ORBIS
    • Euromonitor
    • Snapdata
    • Marketresearch.com
    • Access Asia
    • BBC Monitoring
    • Dialog Newsedge
    • Gale - Times Digital Archive
    • eLexPortal
    • French Electronic Information Industry
  • Information Resources
    • Skyminder
    • Research Express (Scavenger)
    • OneStat
    • ABCE
    • Periodical Publishers Association
  • Top 10 Business Sites

Online Information 2002

As usual at this time of year, Tales from the Terminal Room concentrates on what is happening at Online Information. (We shall revert to our usual format with the December issue). "Online" is the information event for us in the UK and for many information professionals across the world. It is now in its 26th year and takes place from 3-5 December 2002 at the Grand Hall, Olympia, London.

As well as the conference, there is a free exhibition where most of the major information providers display their wares and debut new products. I've selected a few from the numerous press releases that have been circulating in the run up to the show and concentrated on business information, but scientific, technical, biomedical and legal information services are also well represented at the event.

Full details of the exhibition, conference and press releases can be found at http://www.online-information.co.uk/

Company information

EuroInfopool - single access point to European company registers
http://www.euroinfopool.com/
Stand 207

EuroInfopool is a completely new service that gives you a single point of access to official registered company information on 18 million companies from 16 European countries. The official company information is supplied by the European Business Register (EBR), which is a network of official, national business registers in Europe. When you search EuroInfopool, information is retrieved directly from the official national company register of the country in question.

The amount and type of information available varies depending on the country in which the company is based, reflecting the different filing and disclosure requirements. For example, Austrian companies have company profiles whilst Italian companies also have details of members of the board, directors/personal profiles, and lists of shareholders. You have to search each country separately so it does help if you know where the company is based!

In addition, more detailed credit reports are provided by Graydon.

Countries currently covered by the service are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK. More will be added in 2003.

Prices vary depending on the type of report and country. Information from the company registers range from 1 to 7 Euros and the Graydon credit reports start at 52 Euros.

You can sign up for a two week free trial, which gives you access to the company registers but not the credit reports.

Bureau van Dijk - ORBIS and OSIRIS
http://www.bvdep.com/
Stand 136

Bureau van Dijk (BvD), a major provider of electronic company information, has added US fundamental and business intelligence data from Multex to its latest release of OSIRIS, which covers international public company information.

OSIRIS contains information on about 30,000 companies. Specialist information companies provide the data for banks and insurance companies in formats that accurately reflect the different make up of their accounts.

Multex is providing BvD with annual and quarterly detailed financial information going back 20 years for 10,000 U.S. companies. Multex is providing the data in both "as reported" and standardised formats to allow the full integration of the US data with the other information in OSIRIS. The provision of varying levels of standardisation across the product means that complex cross border searching, analysis and peer group comparisons are possible. This is invaluable when you want to search for companies from countries that have widely differing accounting definitions and reporting requirements, but you can also access the "raw" data when required.

Multex data will be incorporated into ORBIS, BvD's new global information product containing information on 10 million companies world-wide. ORBIS also includes Mergers and Acquisition information from the recently launched ZEPHYR (formerly Zephus).

Both OSIRIS and ORBIS are available on free trial from BvD. Contact Bureau van Dijk on +44 20 7549 5000, e-mail: uk@bvdep.com or register on http://www.bvdep.com/

Market Research

Euromonitor launches Global Market information Database Version 2
http://www.euromonitor.com/
Stand 76

Euromonitor, providers of global consumer market intelligence, will be launching Global Market information Database Version 2(GMID V2). The integrated web service provides access to a databank of country, market and lifestyle data across the world. It contains more than 15,000 market sizes, over a million country facts as well as expert analysis of markets, companies and consumer lifestyles. The launch of GMID V2 sees the addition of extra data sets such as an international retail database, more detailed country and lifestyle statistics, and key company market shares.

Snapshots launches Latin America Series
http://www.snapdata.com/
Stand 118

Snapshots International publishes market research covering a broad range of industries world-wide. Snapshots will be launching its new Latin American Series of reports at Online Information 2002 with an initial series of 100 reports covering Mexico and Brazil. Each report provides five years' historical data and five year forecasts. They cover market size, market segmentation, market shares with web-links to the major players, distribution, socio-economic data, and sources for further research such as trade associations.

The Snapshots Series is available by region for standalone, intranet and global networking solutions, while single reports are available from the Snapdata Web site.

MarketResearch.com
http://www.marketresearch.com/
Stand 166b

MarketResearch.com claims that Web searchers are increasingly using their services whether they know it or not. The market research aggregator signed over a dozen syndication deals with major portals and niche industry sites during 2002, including FT.com, Amazon.com, Hoovers, Pharmalicensing and MIT Technology Review. MarketResearch.com provides pay-as-you-go access to over 50,000 publications from 350 publishers in 20 countries, and covers industries from food to telecommunications, and IT to healthcare.

Access Asia
http://www.accessasia.co.uk/
Stand 354

Access Asia, provider of market research and business intelligence on Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao is now including North Korea (DPRK) in its portfolio. In conjunction with Beijing and Pyongyang based Korea Business Consultants, Access Asia is producing a series of briefing reports on various sectors in the DPRK including retailing, soft drinks, beer, forestry and mining. Each briefing will include the potential opportunities for foreign businesses there and a guide on how to do business in DPRK.

News

BBC Monitoring launches advanced version of news database
http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk/
Stand 24

BBC Monitoring has released an advanced version of its international political and economic news database with new features designed to improve search speed and flexibility, and new content to provide greater focus and depth. The new enhancements to BBC Monitoring Online were developed in response to demand from analysts in more than thirty countries for more flexible ways to the use the information, which BBC Monitoring captures from world-wide TV, radio, newspaper and Internet sources.

The new enhancements include:

  • single country and thematic arrays of information
  • a choice of search engines to increase search thoroughness
  • new functionality to provide more control for searching, storing and retrieving information
  • access to a five year archive

Dialog - Newsedge
http://www.newsedge.com/
Stand 245-246

Dialog will be demonstrating Newsedge, a web-based, industry- specific, news alerting service.

Gale - Times Digital Archive
http://www.gale.com/
Stand 248

Gale will be announcing its recently launched database, The Times Digital Archive 1785-1985. The archive will provide access to over 1 million digitised pages and 10 million clipped articles, in a Web format.

General

eLexPortal
http://www.elexportal.com/
Stand 139

eLexPortal.com is an e-Commerce Legislation and Regulatory Policy Portal run in partnership by ERIN S.A. and Cullen International S.A. with the support of the European Commission. The Portal provides non-specialist entrepreneurs and business people with information about variations in the legislative and regulatory aspects relating to eCommerce across the EU. eLexPortal.com offers a single entry point to data on policy and regulation in all the EU member states, a Directory service, sources of information and links to relevant Web Sites.

The French Electronic Information Industry
http://www.gfii.asso.fr/
Stand 190-196

The French Information Industry Association (GFII) will be present at Online with the support of UBIFRANCE, the French Trade Commission in London and the French Ministry of Research. GFII will demonstrate a range of French electronic information activities, with some of its members, including the Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie de Paris, Diva-Press, i-expo Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle, Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique, Lingway, Presse+, Questel.Orbit, Urbamet.

On December 3rd, the GFII has organised the French International Forum, dealing with access to public sector information. On December 4th, in the Thistle Kensington Hotel two French experts, Michel Vajou (MV Conseil) and Stéphane Chaudiron (French Ministry of Research, University of Paris X Nanterre) will speak about the new products on show at the exhibition.


Information Resources

Company Financials and Annual Reports http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/finars.htm

Skyminder http://www.skyminder.com/
Skyminder, which pulls together company information from resources around the world, now has supplementary Eastern European and Japanese credit information from local providers. Eastern European information is provided by Graydon and covers companies based in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Japanese information is from Teikoku Databank America. This brings Skyminder's global coverage up to 46 million public and private companies, including 27 million European companies.

I find this a very useful pay-as-you-go service when trying to track down information on companies that are not based in Europe or the US.

Support for SMEs http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/sme.htm

Scavenger Net has been relaunched as Research Express, http://www.research-express.net/

Statistics http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/stats.htm

OneStat Real-time Web site Analysis Software http://www.onestat.com/
OneStat sells web traffic analysis software but also provides some free statistics in press releases on their Pressbox page. Recent releases covered top browsers, top search engines and most widely used operating systems.

ABCE http://www.abce.org.uk/
A subsidiary of ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations), ABCE was set up in 1996 to aid the buying and selling of advertising space on UK and Ireland based Internet sites. It is a source of independently audited data on Internet traffic and you can search the database free of charge. You can search by URL, name, publisher or category combined with date, and view statistics on page impressions, visits or users. Information on the sites covered by the service is also available as PDF documents.

Periodical Publishers Association http://www.ppa.co.uk/
This site provides readership and advertising data and trends for the 400 UK companies that are members of the Association. It covers 2,260 consumer, business and professional magazines and some of the data and rankings are free.

Top 10 Sites http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/top10/

The delegates on the Key Business Resources on the Net workshop held on November 26th came up with a slightly unusual Top 10. For the first time in over a year, Google was not nominated as a top 10 site. When I asked them why not, they said that it was generally accepted that Google was a key starting point for research and didn't need a special mention!

  1. Companies House http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/ - essential starting point for information on UK registered companies. In particular, the option for searching "previous names" can prove invaluable when trying to track down a company that has changed its name several times.
  2. Hoovers http://www.hoovers.com/ -information on larger companies world-wide.
  3. Corporate Information http://www.corporateinformation.com/ - good starting point for locating business information of all types for countries world-wide.
  4. Buckinghamshire County Council - or any other UK local government Web site for up to date information on what is going on in your area.
  5. Bureau van Dijk Bvd Suite http://www.bvdsuite.com/ - free information from Amadeus on the top 20 European companies and a free directory of companies (free display of information is limited). Also Web access to BvD's priced company information products.
  6. Yahoo UK & Ireland http://www.yahoo.co.uk - access to current news, current and historical share price information, and annual reports.
  7. BBC News http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ - access to news on events world-wide plus links to background information and relevant sites.
  8. UK Online http://www.ukonline.gov.uk/ - starting point for accessing UK central and local government departments and locating government publications.
  9. CIA World Factbook http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ Good, general background information on countries across the world.
  10. Hemmington Scott http://www.hemscott.net/ - good selection of free information on UK listed companies plus priced services for more detailed information.

TFTTR Contact Information

Karen Blakeman, RBA Information Services
UK Tel: 0118 947 2256, Int. Tel: +44 118 947 2256
UK Fax: 020 8020 0253, Int. Fax: +44 20 8020 0253
Address: 88 Star Road, Caversham, Berks RG4 5BE, UK

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This page was last updated on 29th November 2002  2002