Wharton Research Data Services Licensed to 150 Educational and Governmental Institutions Worldwide; User Improvements and Global Development Confirm Wharton Web Platform as Acknowledged Standard for Quantitative Research.

PHILADELPHIA -- With the announcement today of the Indian School of Business as its 150th institutional subscriber, Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) solidifies its place as the de facto standard for quantitative business research.

"The Indian School of Business is proud to be the first institution in India to provide WRDS access to our faculty and students," said Dr. K. Mohan, Director of the ISB's Learning Resource Centre. "This will accelerate our research activities and help us achieve ISB's vision of becoming an internationally top-ranked, research-driven management institution."

WRDS offers a comprehensive, web-based data management system that allows faculty, students and researchers to easily retrieve information from a wide variety of financial, economic, and marketing data sources, and is recognized around the world by the academic and financial research community as the leading business intelligence tool. In just over 20 months, WRDS has more than doubled its research data from approximately 1.5 terabytes to 4 terabytes, and WRDS' subscriber list has grown approximately 50% since the announcement of its 100th subscriber in March 2004.

Last month, Wharton hosted the first regional WRDS Users Meeting at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University to help deepen subscribers' knowledge of how WRDS and its comprehensive data sources can enhance their research activities. The meeting included participants from Harvard University, Princeton University, Northwestern University and the University of North Carolina. "I was struck by the expertise and enthusiasm of the conference attendees," said Nevin Fouts, associate dean for information technology at the Fuqua School of Business. "It was a true collaboration across what are normally competing universities. Everyone took away useful information they can leverage in support of faculty research at their respective schools."

"Since WRDS was first made available to outside institutions eight years ago, it has revolutionized research at business schools," said Michael Boldin, director of WRDS and Fellow of the Wharton Financial Institutions Center. "Along with the growth in subscribers and increased usage by subscribing institutions, the feedback we receive from our users further indicates that we meet the diverse research needs of our subscribers."

The 150 top-tier business schools, universities, and research institutions who currently subscribe to WRDS include the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Stanford University, University of Chicago, MIT, and Northwestern University. With the recent addition of Dartmouth College, seven out of the eight Ivy League institutions now subscribe to WRDS.

Much of WRDS recent growth has been among international and non-academic institutions, with 21 of the last 50 subscribers non-U.S. and federal institutions, including the New York Stock Exchange, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada, University of Oxford, London School of Economics, University of Auckland, University of Tokyo, and INSEAD.

Originally developed by the Wharton School in 1993 as a resource for Wharton faculty, since 1997 WRDS has been available to other schools and non-profit organizations through an application service provider (ASP) model hosted at the Wharton School.

The Wharton School is recognized around the world for its leadership and broad academic strengths across every major discipline and at every level of management education. Founded in 1881 as the nation's first collegiate business school, Wharton has approximately 4,600 undergraduates, MBA, and doctoral students, more than 8,000 participants in its executive education programs annually, and an alumni network of more than 80,000 worldwide.