There is a variety of guides to company information currently on the market. Few, however, really give the depth of detail frequently required by the seeker of company information. This can often be the requirement for very specific facts such as a company credit rating, ownership details or the names of a company’s advisers. This guide aims to direct you straight to the online company databases which contain the information you need.
The guide focuses mainly on commercial online databases which are accessible via an online host. However, this edition also includes some of the Internet sites which provide company profile information, often free of charge. Twenty‐two European countries are covered. The information is split into six separate sections. The first section presents an alphabetical listing of the databases in tabular form so that you can quickly see if the information you require is covered by a particular system. The second section repeats this information, but this time arranged in country order. The third section adds the full contact details of the online hosts, the language of the database and any other special features. The online hosts are then presented in an alphabetical sequence themselves ‐ although for some reason there are no contact details given for FT Profile.
One of the most interesting features is the listing by country of Web addresses for company guides. As more and more companies are discovering the potential of the Web, increasingly a wealth of free information is being made available ‐ the challenge is to find it. These few pages provide an exceptionally useful starting point. Finally, a country by country listing of company types and disclosure requirements complete this volume.
The biggest difficulty with this whole area is that nothing remains static for very long. Mergers, takeovers or even just changes of name in both online hosts and databases complicate the issue: for example, CNN has become Experian; MAID is now Profound and Knight‐Ridder has gone back to being the Dialog Corporation. Hence this edition will quickly go out of date. It is also not as comprehensive in its coverage of databases as the Online/CD‐ROM Business Sourcebook (1999). This is, however, an easy to use guide at a very affordable price for the occasional user of company information databases.
