ProQuest provides muscle for Serials Solutions assault

Serials Solutions, the journal management application vendor acquired by ProQuest Information and Learning in July, is in attack mode as it enters the UK market. With the UK resources of ProQuest behind it, the company plans to aggressively take on subscription giants Swets and Ebsco.

It will offer subscription price freezes for three and five-year contracts. "We are going head-to-head with Ebsco's A-to-Z Service, but ours is a much broader product and includes journal-level OpenURL resolvers," said Peter McCracken, founder of Serials Solutions. He believes the Serials Solutions' technology, price clarity and customer support will win over customers.

Steve McCraken, company president (and brother of Peter), said: "We have posted pricing from day one, we have always been very librarian-centric, not just in the tools, but also in prices, so they know what to expect." The brothers believe their move to post service prices on the web has forced rival US vendors to follow suit.

Steve McCracken claims they have already received serious interest from Ebsco users. Bibliographic information providers Bowker previously acted as UK agents for Serials Solutions. Doug McMillan, head of Bowker's UK operations, said: "We did make strong inroads into Ebsco and Swets. All Serials [Solutions'] focus is on high quality access tools."

But Debbie Dore, Swets UK managing director, pointed to a chink in the Serials Solution armour. "They do not handle the subscription transactions, which makes it harder to ensure that the customer's data is relevant, as they are not aware of the customer's expiry date." She believes this will make the UK market challenging for them.

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