The alliance represents the first time
Lexis-Nexis(r) will offer access to Chinese language content
to its customers world wide. Through an optional co-branded
interface, Lexis-Nexis customers will be able to access over
3.6 million documents from Wisers' Hong Kong, China, Taiwan
and Macau content in addition to the Lexis-Nexis service's
30,000 global sources, comprising more than 3.1 billion
documents. Under the terms of the agreement, Lexis-Nexis will
offer seamless access to Wisers Information's service
from its nexis.com and Lexis-Nexis(r)
Enterprise Solutions platforms. Users will be able to retrieve Chinese and
English sources through a single web-based platform.
 English and Chinese keywords in
one search query
The new service
permits English
and Chinese keywords to be entered in a search query combined with
AND or OR connectors. A thesaurus translates keywords from
one language to another expanding the search. Full text documents are
viewed in their original
language.
The research organisation Computer Economics has predicted that the
number of non-English speakers online will increase by 150
percent in the next six years. According to its
research, 46 percent of current internet users are non-English speaking. By the
year 2004, those users will represent more than 54 percent of the
total number of internet users.
"We are proud to be making our first
Asian language partnership with Wisers Information. Today's
deal is a sign of our
commitment to
Asia and our determination to enhance our services to
customers," said Eva Au, Managing Director, Asia Pacific, Lexis-Nexis. "nexis.com users can
now access information and materials in two of the three most widely
used languages on the Internet.
Authoritative
and primary source materials
"The major beneficiaries of our enhanced
service offering will be academic researchers, journalists,
and legal, business and government
leaders -
in fact, anyone who needs to know what is going
on in Greater China and needs timely access to authoritative and
primary source materials," said Ms. Au.
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"Wisers is the
market leader in Greater China Chinese information market and
we are very excited with Wisers' proprietary technologies and
comprehensive Chinese content coverage. We are confident that
Wisers' service will be able to meet the demanding
requirements of our international customers." added Ms.
Au.
The parent company
of Lexis-Nexis, Reed Elsevier plc, last year announced
ambitious growth plans for Lexis-Nexis, as part of a USD1
billion internet development initiative over three years. "We
are proud to introduce our flagship web service, WiseSearch,
to Lexis-Nexis customers. After years of work, it proves that
our information service has achieved a recognised
international standard. With the alliance, we can further
expand our information service to multinational customers
around the world and complement to quality service of
Lexis-Nexis." said Ringo Lam, CEO of Wisers.
Largest online
Chinese information provider
Wisers Information
Limited was founded by the Chinese University
of Hong Kong Foundation in July 1998. Headquartered in
Hong Kong, Wisers has offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Taipei
with more than 120 employees. The company is
now one of the largest online Chinese information providers in
Asia.
Powered by proprietary technologies
developed at CUHK and fuelled with more than 340 credible
content sources from Greater China, Wisers specialises in
collecting, processing, indexing and customising Chinese news
information to local enterprises, multinational corporations,
government entities and education bodies. With a sound
business model and outstanding track record, Wisers has
attracted numerous interests from leading international
technology investors since 1998. The current investors include
The Chinese University of Hong Kong Foundation, Walden
International Investment Group and E.M. Warburg Pincus &
Co., LLC. For more information, visit www.wisers.com
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