[WEB4LIB] ResearchSoft - Bibliographic Software Monopoly?

[morganj at iupui.edu]

I don't have any figures, but based on discussion on the BIBSOFT list,
at least two other packages, Papyrus and Library Manager, each have a
following.

Jim Morgan
morganj at iupui.edu



On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Cliff Urr wrote:

> >From a recent Woody's Windows Watch #2.13:
> 
> "Looking at the high tech scene, one notes increased anti-trust 
> activity by the DOJ and FTC.  But remarkably, the smaller stuff 
> seems to elude  them.  Take bibliographic software.  This is 
> admittedly a backwater for  many but for those librarians and 
> academics that need it, it is a  critical component of their working 
> software set.  A few years ago, there were three major 
> suppliers/products.  Reference Information Systems (RIS)
>  had Reference Manager, Professional Bibliographic Software had 
> ProCite  and Niles Software had EndNote.  In particular, Niles was 
> aggressive on  price and caused prices to drop from the $800 range 
> to the $200-$400  range.  These three companies had different 
> market niches (ProCite  dominated the librarian market while 
> Reference Manager the medical  research community) but covered 
> virtually the entire market for personal bibliographic databases, a 
> market estimated at 300,000 users.  
> 
> Then the fun started.  Reference Information Systems bought ProCite 
> and in turn it became a division of the Institute for Scientific 
> Information, aka ISI (which is the leader in providing libraries with 
> comprehensive bibliographic databases - for example complete 
> contents of journals), which is itself owned by the huge publishing 
> conglomerate Thomson.  On April 14, ISI announced the acquisition 
> of Niles Software and its intent to merge it and RIS into a new 
> company called ResearchSoft.  I haven't market figures but I'd guess 
> that this company will have close to 100% of the market for software 
> to manage personal bibliographic databases.  But the Feds seem to 
> be asleep." 
>