Bond Buyer's Munifacts Wire To Get PC Implementation Built Around First Call Corp.'S Software

Bearing a family resemblance to corporate cousin First Call, a new PC-based version of the Munifacts municipal bond wire will enter beta test in August. The as-yet-unnamed service marks the first product integration involving two different units of the International Financial Networks (Infinet) group of International Thomson Organization, Ltd.

Munifacts is operated by Infinet's American Banker/Bond Buyer unit. First Call is majority-owned by Infinet's Business Research Corp. Software for the new service is "similar [to] but not the same" as First Call, says Peter Malkin, senior vice president, information services, at AB/BB. "We've used their technology as a basis for what we've built."

First Call, with several hundred subscribers, allows money managers to receive brokerage analysts' morning meeting notes and revised earnings estimates in near-real time. The notes and other data are broadcast and stored on a PC at the customer's location, where specialized software allows the information to be filed, sorted, and retrieved.

Until now the Munifacts wire, with about 1,500 subscribers, has been strictly a teleprinter service. The screen-based version, says Malkin, will allow many of the same filing, sorting, and retrieval functions as First Call. "You can scroll back through headlines. You can call up specific offerings that come over the wire which are digitized and put into a database format," he says.

However, unlike First Call, which tends to deliver most of its information in the morning, the new Munifacts service needs real-time monitoring and news alert capabilities. "When things occur, they actually show up on the screen in real time, as opposed to requiring some kind of operator interrupt to see what's occurred," says Malkin.

The new service is delivered via the same Satnet channel used by the Munifacts wire. "We've enhanced the existing print data stream to include digital components which are transparent to each control unit at the customer site," says Malkin. The digital feed comes out only through a spare port on the controller.

This combination of First Call technology and Munifacts content is Infinet's first step toward integrating the disparate pieces of its business. Long-term, the group's strategy is thought to be an interactive satellite network over which all Infinet businesses can execute transactions and deliver information. Infinet chief Robert Hall is former president of IBM's Satellite Business Systems joint venture.