The Gazette 1991

april

1991

g a z e t t e

f i rm can get basic informa- tion about key personnel and important aspects of a company's business. Dublin Library's bibliographic index of Irish business periodicals from 1982 onwards is accessible through Minitel. Journal articles on a particular company or subject can be f ound t h r ough a search. Solicitors wishing to make contact wi th clients or colleagues can also do so through the Eirpage System available on Minitel. These are only a r andom selection of the services available on Minitel. And those worried about the costs of the services should know that a special Lotto service is also available. This helps Minitel users to pick their lottery numbers by generating random selections of six numbers. •

would give it 150,000 users in Ireland alone. A range of other services are, or will soon be, available on the Minitel ne two r k. These include agri- business, banking and finance, business services, entertainment, freight and transport, media and communications, shopping and travel and tourism. Among the services provided under these headings are: a biblio- graphic index of Irish periodical literature relevant to the agri- business sector; Cognotec, which provides foreign exchange rates, bank interest rates, bank account information, share prices and business news, among other information; Dun & Bradstreet, whose databases provide up to date access to credit and financial data on more than 16 million business worldwide; and Kompass, a database of products, services and management personnel of the top 11,000 Irish companies. Information from such services is clearly of interest to the legal sector. Using the various databases available through Minitel, the legal

applies to the particular service being used. Calls are charged at the same rate to all users in Ireland for a particular service, no matter what the location of the user. Minitel subscribers receive a single bill f r om Minitel Commun i ca t i ons Limited for all of their service calls at the end of each billing period. Minitel was launched early this year and is expanding its services monthly. AIB Group and Credit Lyonnais, t wo of Europe's major banks, each own a 20 per cent stake. France Telecom and Telecom Eireann each own a 30 per cent share of the company. The system is modelled on the successful French version, which has been successful in reaching 20 per cent of the French telephone user's market. It offers over 13,000 services to 5.5. million users. The Irish Minitel operation has far more modest initial aspirations. It is hoping for an inital uptake of approximately 10,000 sets in the first year of operations, but it ultimately hopes to reach a 15 per cent market penetration, which

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