Reuters Enters U.S. Equities Market With Equities 2000, Integrated Data Network, International Database

With the formal unveiling of its Equities 2000 service, Reuters Holdings PLC has at long last entered the vast and competitive North American market for real-time equities data. What's clear, however, is that Equities 2000 is not the product Reuters will use to carry the flag as it thrusts to conquer the market in coming years. In fact, Equities 2000 seems to have been hastily repositioned to serve as a placeholder while the firm's real strategic equities product -- the "ART 2" -- is readied for market. While the Equities 2000 terminal seen by reporters at a May 27th briefing was the same terminal shown to analysts in New York late last year (MTR, December 1987), the company's explanation of the product's role has undergone some prominent evolution.

Last year, Equities 2000 was played down as just a nice new color terminal for subscribers to the Monitor international equities service. It was unconnected, Reuters said, to the planned IDN, or Integrated Data Network. "We will either sell you one or the other," said a spokesperson at the time.

Now Reuters wants to sell you both. Equities 2000 is being positioned as the first product to dwell on the high-speed IDN, as well as the first Reuters product to provide North American equities data in North America. But Reuters officials are taking pains not to make too many claims for the product.

Likely customers for the Equities 2000 include international traders, treasurers of multinational corporations, and institutions with large international holdings, according to Buford Smith, vice president, market data services, at Reuters Information Services Inc. Conspicuous by its absence is any mention of the retail stockbroker, who accounts for the biggest slice of the market for equities data in the U.S.

Asked for the chief reason a customer would buy an Equities 2000 in lieu of a Quotron or ADP terminal, Smith replies "coverage." It is true that the IDN carries data from more international markets than any U.S. vendor, but the exchanges needed by the retail RR to succeed at his work can be counted on the fingers of both hands.

Reuters's strategic equities product will be the Advanced Reuter Terminal 2 (ART 2), which is expected to enter beta test by the end of the third quarter. It also will reside on the IDN, and will provide analytics, Reveal's portfolio management software, Instinet access, and other Windowed goodies. The first generation ART, aimed chiefly at the forex market, has sold about 1,200 units in the year since it was introduced.

ART 2 will cost more than Equities 2000, which is priced at $950 for the controller and first terminal, $150 for each additional terminal (up to six per controller), and $400 for each additional controller. Monitor services, which can also be accessed via the IDN, are extra.

The high-speed IDN will be capable of delivering a 56 kilobits/ second data feed to customer premises, says Smith -- "possible but not always the case." Site licensing for the raw feed should be available sometime this fall. He declines comment on the Ku-band satellite system being developed to deliver the IDN, but sources say M/A-Com Telecommunications is supervising tests of not just a 56 kbps, but a T-1 (1.544 megabits/second) satellite pipeline.