Europe has a new entrant in the competitive filtered news market. US firm WavePhore claims to be one of only three news providers able to offer 200 sources in real time, and, according to UK head Bryan Wirthlin, is ready to compete with more established services on cost and content. TIM OWEN spoke to him.

Arizona-based WavePhore already has some big name customers in the US.

Nike, Goodyear Tire and RJR Nabisco are among approximately 80 clients, as well as IBM, KPMG and Coopers & Lybrand. Over 50,000 individual users currently plug into WavePhore's Newscast service, delivered by satellite to local servers. Now it's entering the increasingly crowded European market for customised news feeds.

WavePhore's satellite technology means it currently broadcasts over 200 news sources in real time. "There are only two other filtered market news vendors that can do this," claimed Bryan Wirthlin. The service can broadcast to any groupware environment, including intranets, Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes. "Our competitors charge astronomical prices for storage and distribution software when 90% of the same functionality resides in the groupware servers," Mr Wirthlin added.

WavePhore's Newscast service offers only satellite broadcasting at present.

Its footprint covers all of Europe, although it is currently evaluating both cable and the Internet as possible distribution media. The complete news set that Newscast distributes resides at the customer's site, with Newscast software acting as a gateway to the local server.

"The customer has complete control of the content at the local server," Mr Wirthlin pointed out.

Acknowledging that the filtered news market is becoming crowded, Mr Wirthlin nevertheless believes that his service has special strengths: "Many of our competitors rely on WavePhore technology for distribution of real-time news. The end-user benefits because the satellite distribution fees are less. We don't charge premiums for multiple sources of content, and customer service regarding software or distribution can be resolved with one phone call."

Customers receive and store the complete real-time news feed locally.

End-users can then filter and search the complete news feeds. "The ability to search the complete news set is critical," said Mr Wirthlin. "Newscast has embedded search and indexing capabilities from Verity Inc, one of the leaders in text indexing and retrieval."

With everyone expecting to port to intranets before too long, won't Newscast's pricing advantage disappear? Not for the type of distribution and filtering that it offers, said Mr Wirthlin. "If the content providers distribute their complete news for free to the Internet, then our pricing advantage disappears. This I doubt will happen. What Newscast provides is a large selection of news sources that are integrated for filtering and searching.

This same type of functionality would be a lot more expensive for a company to duplicate on its own."

Fed largely by American services at the moment, WavePhore is moving to add more Europe-orientated content. In addition to Reuters and Dow Jones' DowVision, it expects to offer AFX, AFP and the Financial Times by September or October. It is also talking to Reuters about adding Reuter Business Alert to Newscast for Microsoft Exchange and intranets.

Although the company announced last May that it was considering future low-cost delivery to all Web users, including people at home, plans are clearly not very far advanced. "Currently WavePhore Newscast is only targeting corporations," Mr Wirthlin said. "If Newscast had a home product, the software would be broadcast via cable using WavePhore's VBI (vertical blanking technology) or the Internet. It would be a watered down version of Newscast with, probably, an embargoed selection of news."

Pricing structure is straightforward, according to Mr Wirthlin. A typical customer with 50 users in London would pay a one-time charge of #1000 for the satellite equipment, #750 for installation of the satellite and Newscast software, and #6800 for TopicNewscast for the corporate intranet or Microsoft Exchange. The monthly subscription fees vary according to content provider. "WavePhore does not add any premiums to the monthly content fees," Mr Wirthlin pointed out. "The annual maintenance fee of #3400 (half the price of TopicNewscast) is for all upgrades and support of TopicNewscast. If the content provider's monthly fees were #1250, the first year's total fees would be #23,550, and the following year's #18,400."

For the price of the installation, WavePhore encourages potential customers to evaluate the Newscast technology and the news content, and get end-user feedback on the usefulness of a filtered news service. "Any news feed can be entitled for 30 days at no fee," Mr Wirthlin explained. "After the 30 days, the customer may keep or remove the service."

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