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--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 27, 2006--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.