Reuters Holdings Plc has launched two new business information services. A new division, Reuters Business Information, has been created to handle the new business. Reuters Business Briefing is a dial-up, on-line service, more-or-less similar to Reuter Textline. The difference is a new, easier-to-use Windows-based interface, and the lower charges; a month’s subscription, entitling the user to 20 hours of on-line search, costs UKP490. Extra time costs UKP245 for 10 hours. The database covers the last five years, compared with Textline’s 13 years, but enables more detailed search criteria and analysis – graphs of share prices over the last five years, for example. The other service is Reuters Business Alert, a self-updating, continuous information service that automatically provides the user with information conforming to pre-set criteria. At pre-defined intervals, the system automatically connects to the Reuter host and searches on categories defined by the user. Up to 20 companies in two industries are covered. Reuter Business Alert costs UKP250 per month for the workstation version, plus UKP50 for each additional user. For the server version, prices vary according to the amount of data requested, the number of users, distribution of data and the length of time for which the data is stored. Both the new services are available immediately.
