Under the new agreement, FactSet will offer access to FirstRain's web research engine within FactSet's highly regarded financial software platform.

This means that FactSet users will now be able to review and analyze qualitative intelligence from the web within the comprehensive FactSet system. Additionally, FactSet clients will be able to license the full capabilities of FirstRain's powerful new research engine directly from FactSet.

"FactSet's business success has always been based on technology and service, providing the most comprehensive financial data and analytic applications available," says T.J. Jetnil, FactSet's Director of Real Time Product Sales. "For over a year now, we've partnered with FirstRain to provide clients with the additional capability to research and extract business-critical information from the vast amounts of unstructured, qualitative data found on the web. After receiving positive feedback about both our new interface and FirstRain's research engine, it made sense for us to take steps to offer FirstRain's capabilities directly to FactSet users.

"We are pleased to enter into this new phase of our relationship with FactSet," responds Penny Herscher, President and CEO of FirstRain. "As a leading investment research platform to the international investment community, FactSet's deep understanding of the investment research workflow and its strong client base allows them to be well positioned to leverage FirstRain's unique ability to deliver high-quality web analytics and business intelligence previously unavailable to institutional investors. We are looking forward to working with them to add an exciting dimension to their new interface."

Background

In September, FactSet launched a newly redesigned financial software platform to consolidate a wealth of data and analytics, previously provided across multiple FactSet applications, into to a single, intuitive system. The new platform provides global investment professionals with the data and analytics to evaluate companies, track real-time market data, create investment ideas, and manage portfolios.

Also in 2009, FirstRain released a powerful new web research engine that finds, filters, and analyzes the vast amounts of unstructured, qualitative business data available on the web that may impact an investment thesis. FirstRain allows users to tap into new qualitative data sources; to extract information and trends around companies and industries; to mitigate the risks of missing important information; to make connections between business lines and their markets, industry topics, and trends that affect them; and to prepare for earnings calls and management meetings quickly and more efficiently. This new research engine, combined with the success of the past year's partnership with FactSet, was the impetus for the new reseller agreement.