Practically everything you ever wanted to know about a specific stock is now accessible through a Palm, Research in Motion Inc. Blackberry or Microsoft Corp. Pocket PC handheld device courtesy of iphrase Technologies Inc.’s One Step Research for Wireless software.
Iphrase, based in Cambridge, Mass., is entering the wireless market, targeting brokerage firms, investment banks and financial service institutions that want their clients to have the latest information from Wall Street.
One Step Research will query a user’s request and return highly specific results, including company cash balances, stock prices and contact information. One Step Research also will list stocks and companies in various orders, such as by market capitalization, and compare and contrast various stocks based on requested criteria. A user can request up to 100 stock fundamentals.
“The whole notion is through a single interface, you can access the information you need,” said Diane Rich, vice president of new markets for iphrase.
The fastest way to submit queries via One Step Research is by using abbreviations, which Rich admits might take a user a little time to learn. For example, if a user wants to compare Ford Motor Co.’s and General Motors Corp.’s sales, after-tax income and debt-equity, he would enter “F, GM, sales, prof, de.” One Step Research will, however, recognize words, phrases and sentences as well.
Iphrase said One Step Research will alleviate the need for financial institutions and others to design and maintain Web sites specifically for wireless devices because it uses a site’s existing content. It also can be integrated with new Web sites.
Rich said the main point of an application like iphrase’s is to get users to act on information.
“The reality of wireless applications from the user standpoint is a little disappointing,” she said. “People are investing substantially ahead of demand. …. It’s similar to the Internet in that having interesting applications will drive adoption.”
The company is still trying to engage a customer for its One Step Research for Wireless product, but Charles Schwab has signed on to use iphrase’s One Step product suite for personal computers. Rich said iphrase will license out One Step Research to customers annually at a cost ranging in the low-to-mid six figures.
Privately held iphrase was founded in 1999 by three members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Laboratory for Computer Science and Noam Ben-Ozer, the company’s chairman and chief executive officer and former manager at Bain & Co., a strategic management consulting firm. Iphrase has approximately 90 employees.
