British Standards Institution (BSI) has announced an extension of its agreement with Information Handling Services (IHS) Group’s Engineering Division of the USA, to include the development and delivery of British Standards over the Internet and in other online applications. Under the extended agreement IHS Engineering together with its UK subsidiary, Technical Indexes Ltd will also become the original and principal distributor of BSI’s online services.
BSI carried out extensive market research to establish the needs of industry for the timely and cost-effective access to Standards, using Internet technology. This research showed that users want rapid and comprehensive information, from all sources of standards information: a true "one-stop-shop". This requirement led to the decision to partner with IHS Engineering which has the development, sales and support infrastructure in place to deliver what the industry wants. IHS is the major value-added distributor of information services containing standards from around the world with extensive services delivered on CD-ROM and through both public and private networks.
British Standards and IHS Group will work together to launch a range of BSI services that will deliver added value standards information electronically using the Internet, Intranets, Extranets and various distributed electronic media. These services will be designed to meet the needs of BSI’s customers and members throughout the world and will carry a strong British Standards brand. IHS Engineering and Technical Indexes will market and support all these electronic delivery services containing British Standards alongside their other services containing technical, regulatory and product information.
IHS Engineering will be responsible for the development of the applications for the delivery of British Standards and for the provision of the necessary servers and high-speed telecommunication infrastructure.
David Lazenby, BSI’s Director, British
Standards comments: "British Standards recognises the need
to address our customer requirements for rapid availability and
delivery of BS’s, together with other value-adding products.
The extension of our Licence Agreement with IHS ensures that
the full technical support for this venture will be in place.
We are confident that this will keep British Standards in the
forefront of adding value to industry and our other stakeholders".