Wrap-Up Q2 2005
To All Our Valued Customers:
The highlight of the second quarter was Alacra�s terrific presence at the SLA conference in Toronto. We sponsored the annual Business & Finance Division luncheon and I made a short presentation about Alacra�s commitment to RSS-based current awareness products. Attendance at the show was excellent and the exhibit hall was ideal.
Transaction-based revenue continues to grow, reflecting strength in our core markets � investment banking, commercial banking and management consulting. Market research, credit research and business information from D&B continue to be in strong demand. As I described briefly at the end of the first quarter, we recently released a new D&B-based Corporate Linkage/Family Tree report which is generating tremendous interest.
We closed a number of significant deals in the last three months that will expand who we touch at many customer firms. In one project we are applying our federated search technology to the new account vetting process at a large investment bank. Our technology, combined with the licensing of some new databases such as World-Check, will help streamline the Patriot Act compliance process. In another project we are developing an alerting service that will provide a large number of employees with news on personnel changes as well as other important events at their customers. This service will utilize RSS and will enable us to build other customized RSS-delivered services.
On the content front, Board Member Inc. data was released as part of our Alacra Connections product last quarter and we expect to have Leadership Directories and Thomson Officer & Directors data available in Connections late in the third quarter. We recently signed a deal to make the archive of The Economist available via Alacra. In addition, we expect to sign a deal with Audit Analytics over the summer.
Finally, I received a number of compliments about Alacra customer support while at our booth at SLA. A few customers did not realize that there is always customer support coverage on the weekends from 9:00 AM GMT until 5:00 PM EST. To make sure our growing customer base in Australia and Asia receive the same level of support as the rest of the world, we have recently hired someone to be based in our New York headquarters from 5:00 PM through 1:00 AM EST Sunday through Thursday. Our London team will commence coverage at 6:00 AM GMT, thus enabling us to provide full 24x5 support.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Steven Goldstein
Chief Executive Officer