Lotus Brings Software Expertise To Quote Business

In a makeover worthy of Glamour magazine, Lotus Development Corp. has completely transformed Dataspeed, Inc., the financial quotations firm it acquired less than two months ago. Both the company and its primary product have new names, and at a recent New York press conference, only a few faces from the "old" Dataspeed were recognizable in the crowd.

Dataspeed is now Lotus Information Network Corp. (LINC), and its Modio FM quote receiver is now the hardware component of a product called "Signal." LINC is a subsidiary of the Information Services division at Lotus and, for the moment, both LINC and Lotus Information Services have separate marketing and technical staffs.

One unexpected obstacle for Lotus is a competing trademark claim on the name "Signal" from a rival quote vendor. Bonneville Data Systems and General Electric Information Services Co. recently adopted the name for the chief product of their joint marketing venture -- a network to support new Bonneville products like "MacInvestor" for the Apple Macintosh. According to GEISCO's Dick O'Brien, the name "Signal" was first used at Bonneville's videopress conference debuting its Macintosh quote products on August13th. "our attorney is presently drafting documents to send to Lotus to see what we can work out," he says.

"We did a trademark search and that did not show up," says LINC president Jim West. "I was not aware until this very moment. That very well may be a conflict." West says Lotus checked out several possible names for the product and 'Signal' is one that cleared.

The world's largest purveyor of microcomputer software sees its new acquisition in strategic terms. "We not only become the source for software to analyze and process and-look at data, we become the supplier of the data itself," says Lotus president Jim Manzi. The chief bottom line effect, Manzi hopes, is that LINC will provide a "recurring source of revenue from our installed base of users," thereby insulating Lotus from the sales ups and downs of the singleshot software business.

In the near term, there will be two principal effects. First, Lotus will put its retail marketing clout behind Signal with a million-dollar-plus ad campaign in the 12 markets where LINC is currently available via FM sideband. The campaign broke September 20th with a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal. The hope, says one source, is to sell 1,000 or more of the company's Signal receivers by the end of the year. Second, LINC will begin an FM affiliate acquisition campaign to expand its coverage into at least the top 20-25 markets.

Like the old Dataspeed package, the new Lotus Signal package has three components:

(1) Hardware -- The Signal FM receiver resembles the Dataspeed Modio, but it is "very different in the software area," says David Reed, vide president, research and development, Information Services division. The device now has an audible alarm that will sound when pre-set price or volume limits are reached, even if the attached personal computer is turned off or being used for something else.

(2) Software -- signal's software includes a redesigned version of the Dataspeed "Stockwatch program, which allows display of data on up to 250 issues -- indexes, equities, commodities, or options. The package also includes a software bridge which allows incoming data to be dumped directly to a Lotus 1-2-3 or Symphony spreadsheet, and a set of 1-2-3/Symphony templates which enable these programs to be used for simple portfolio management.

(3) Data -- Signal's quote stream comprises the same components as Dataspeed's -- real-time data on 20,000 issues, including NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ stocks, CBT, CME, and CEC futures, OPRA options, and various indexes and market statistics.

The Signal kit is priced at $595, including receiver, cables, indoor dipole antenna, software, and lifetime software upgrades. The basic monthly data charge is $80, plus $20 for each exchange received, plus regular exchange fees. A non-professional user wishing to receive NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ, 'for example, would pay, $140/month -- $80 base and $20 each for three exchanges -- plus exchange fees of $28.75.

Lotus sees Signal's ability to dump quotes directly into 1-2-3 spreadsheets as crucial to the success of the product. 1-2-3 users who are buying quotes from another source and entering them manually into 1-2-3 may buy Signal as a second source just to get relief from that drudgery, according to Lex Crosett, marketing manager at Lotus Information Services. "If we could sell "the product to one per cent of our installed base, we'd be very happy."

At present, the only other quote vendor offering a 1-2-3 bridge is PC Quote, Inc. The company's Level II package can update on a tic-by-tic basis "Lotus or Symphony or any other program that imports or exports ASCII characters," says Alicia Johnson, vice president, marketing. Users can toggle back and forth between PC Quote and l-2-3, she says.

The Signal 1-2-3/Syphony bridge does not offer tic-by-tic updates, but instead requires that memory be polled whenever new data are needed, says Lotus's Reed. A user can create a simple macro to accomplish this update periodically, leaving' "Symphony or 1-2-3 in control of when the numbers change out from under it," he says. "In order to put new data into 1- 2- 3 or Symphony at any arbitrary time -- no matter what you're typing--would actually make the product incredibly difficult to use."

Lotus has under development an intermediate software product incorporating the real time updates of the Signal quote screen and some of the analytical capability of 1-2-3, says Reed. Also in the works is a program for "background data capture" to permit intra-day analysis. Lotus is also working on specialized applications "with a number of third parties" including Reveal Software, Inc. and Bristol Financial Systems, Inc., he says.