MMS Rolls Out "Direct" Distribution Service

MMS International, which rode to fortune and fame on the back of Telerate's distribution network, has now established a distribution network of its own. Its new broadcast service, MMS Direct, allows stand-alone PC users to receive the MMS economic analysis and commentary that once had been available only through vendor services.

Company executives are careful to stress that the new service is designed to expand MMS's market and not to cannibalize existing business on Telerate, Reuters and Bridge. Customers will pay the same price for the same information no matter how it is delivered, says MMS marketing chief David Beasley. However, MMS will receive 100 cents on the dollar from direct customers, as opposed to its traditional practice of sharing each revenue dollar with a vendor.

In a marketplace often characterized by user-antagonistic software, oversexed processors and support for operating systems that have yet to exist, MMS Direct provides a distinctive change of pace. It is designed to run just fine on standalone 8088 PCs under MS-DOS. It runs in background in about 160K of memory, and can be hot-keyed into foreground at any time. The data files need about 2 megabytes of fixed-disk storage.

With the exception of a few numeric pages, all of the MMS services available through any vendor in North America are available through MMS Direct, says Beasley. The new service also provides improved selectivity, dividing services not only along conventional market lines, e.g., bonds or equities, but also along analytic lines, e.g., technical and fundamental.

The MMS Direct screen is reminiscent of the service on Telerate, right down to the drop window for news headlines. In addition to its own page-numbering system, it also emulates Telerate's, so that experienced users can call up pages without having to learn anything new.

Market News Service, which shares common ownership with MMS, is available as an add-on, says Beasley, and deals are being worked out with other news providers. Perhaps aiding in that effort is the fact that MMS Direct is broadcast over the FM sideband and VSAT network operated by Mainstream Data. That same data stream also delivers news wires from Reuters, Dow Jones, Bond Buyer and UPI.

Although simplicity was the guiding principle behind the first release of MMS Direct, elaborations are planned for the near future. These include data archiving, export to applications software and LAN support. One user at the Dec. 13 product launch instantly announced her intention to plug MMS Direct into a video switch.