Thomson have announced that “after carefully analyzing our product portfolio, we have decided to realign specific services within Business Intelligence Services. Our goal is to best align our products and resources to the markets and customers we serve.” They are selling Market Research (Profound) and NewsEdge and say they are currently in discussions with potential buyers. The News Research service will be discontinued from December 31, 2007 and the Broker Research and Insite services are being moved from Thomson Business Intelligence to Thomson Financial.

I am not really surprised at their decision to sell Profound. I have not used it for several years but many people who have attended my workshops have not been impressed by it. Complaints have included inconsistent and irreproducible search results, complex pricing, and disappearing titles and publishers. As for their news services, they have never fared well when compared against Factiva and LexisNexis.