Maid and Lotus in Profound Talks

Business information vendor Maid is involved in discussions with IBM subsidiary Lotus as the company attempts to expand into the software search market.

The talks came at the same time as Maid reported a pre-tax profit of #2.35 million and a turnover of #6.75 million in the three months ended 31 March, compared with the previous quarter?s figures of #1.43 million and #4.48 million.

The talks with Lotus centre around Maid?s Infosort technology, which allows users to search for information within databases. Infosort uses the same development engine as Maid?s online database, Profound, an electronic thesaurus which finds words and concepts related to a search request. No agreement has been reached between the two companies as the talks have just begun.

Maid started attacking the software search market after it entered into an agreement with Digital?s subsidiary, Alta Vista. But Maid is looking to generate more revenue from the search side of the business, although three-quarters of sales still come from its electronic distribution of market research reports.