Thomson Launches Web-based Research

In an effort to bring together its various information platforms and services, Thomson Financial has launched Thomson Research, a Web-based application for research. Thomson Research is a single application for accessing Thomson's Research Bank Web and Global Access platforms, as well as access to extensive Thomson company and industry research.

"Customers want the flexibility to access all of the content they are interested in on fewer platforms and this allows that," says Mark Lerch, president of the Investment Banking Group at Thomson Financial. "All of this content was available on Web platforms previously, but this brings it together on one platform so users can navigate across these content sets."

More specifically, Thomson Research provides access to the Investext collection of brokerage analyst research reports and corporate earnings conference call transcripts provided by Fair Disclosure Network. The platform will also offer access to the MarkIntel database, which covers industry-specific market intelligence from more than 630 investment banks, brokerage houses and research firms as well as 150 market research firms.

Other information services available through Thomson Research include Worldscope global financials and accounting results; I/B/E/S global analyst earnings forecasts, historical estimates and recommendations; the new Thomson Extel cards which incorporate data from Thomson Financial databases and contains up to 1,400 data items on each card; real-time and historical SEC EDGAR filings and stories from the UK Regulatory News Service.

The Thomson Research applications are componentized and can therefore be customized for end-user intranet or extranet solutions, says Lerch. "If an investment bank was building a bankers desktop portal and wanted to bring this kind of content or the navigation and workflow of the Thomson Research platform onto the portal along with other content they're bringing in, we can facilitate that," he adds.

Thomson Research customers can also customize their subscription agreements, either as a pay-as-you-go service or a full subscription for unlimited information. Thomson's Research Bank Web and Global Access clients are in the process of migrating to the Thomson Research platform. While the Thomson Research origins stem from the investment banking group needs, the platform will also be targeted at other key financial segments such as institutional money managers, the sales and trading markets and corporate investor relations.