Veteran information professional, Ellen Miller, with more than 20 years experience managing information services for Wall Street firms, examined Powerize.com [www.powerize.com] to determine its potential for corporate information platforms.

For years, many of us have been looking for a way to liberate library staff from performing basic news searches without bankrupting our organization by putting fee-based information services on every desktop. Particularly now, when we are seeking information solutions for corporate intranets, Powerize.com would seem to be the answer to our prayers. The basic selling point for this service is that the search results gleaned from over 2,400 sources are provided free. That’s right: free! Sound too good to be true? Then remember the adage that you learned at your mother’s knee: You get what you pay for.

Powerize.com has done an excellent job of building its image as a premier business information provider. Every press release refers to Powerize.com as “the Internet’s ultimate source for business research.” Both in the product literature and on its Web site, Powerize.com points out that it has content from more than 10,000 sources, and that access to over 2,400 of these titles is free to the user. According to Michael Gallagher, senior VP,  Marketing and Product Development, the aim of Powerize.com is to make business information readily and easily accessible to the end user through “clickable” industry overviews and simple querying software. In this article I will share my experiences using this tool to help you decide whether Powerize.com might have value for your organization’s intranet.
 

[Complete article available in print] 

 

Contents	Intranet Professional Home