PC Quote And Bridge Affiliates Form Joint Venture To Market 'World Ticker,' Develop International Business

PC Quote, Inc. plans to take its technology overseas through a new joint venture, PC Quote International. At the same time, the firm says it will offer its U.S. customers a feed of international market data -- what it calls a "world ticker."

The letter of intent defining the joint venture says PC Quote International will be half-owned by PC Quote, Inc. and half-owned by two other firms, Bridge Data Co. Ltd. (Bridge Europe) and Bridge Data (Far East) Pty., Ltd. Each of the Bridge partners is in turn owned half by Bridge Holding Corp. and half by British businessman Greg Moore. Under terms of the agreement, Bridge Data Europe and Bridge Data Far East would purchase 750,000 shares of PC Quote common at $5/share -- a total investment of $3.75 million.

Bridge currently operates data centers in London and Sydney, says PC Quote chairman Lou Morgan. These will be used to compile tickers from 74 overseas exchanges into the world ticker. "It's the only viable alternative [to Reuters] that we know of," says Morgan.

The joint venture has two missions. First is to export PC Quote's North American quote stream and IBM-PC software. Second is to import the world ticker for use by U.S. clients. North American data is widely available overseas, so the PC software is the crucial element, says Morgan. Since worldwide the IBM/MS-DOS standard is "generally not as completely [established] as it is" in the U.S., a Unix implementation is under development, says Morgan.

The plan is to deliver PC Quote's feed overseas the way it is in the U.S. -- by direct satellite. This will be easier to do in Australasia than in Europe, Morgan says, because the facilities are available. He promises a phased roll-out beginning in 90 days, but admits he has no agreements with any of these satellite companies. "We're starting to talk with them," he says.

The proposed world ticker feed includes some relatively obscure exchanges -- like Madrid, or Wellington, N.Z. Asked if some of these aren't more trouble than they're worth, Morgan replies: "We've already got the data, so rather than have someone say, 'Well, do you have Wellington?,' it's easier to just say yes to everything."

Morgan declines to comment on the data characteristics of the world ticker, except to say that it will be comparable to the 9600 bits/second used in the North American feed. Time zone differences will spread out peak channel loading. As many as 150,000 symbols will be available, he says, but user PCs will probably not be configured to handle more than 70,000.

Morgan promises "competitive" pricing. "The marketing plans are really in the formulative process right now," he says, declining to be specific. One thing's for sure, though: "Going head-to-head against Reuters on their own turf might not be the exact way to do it."