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Predicasts, Inc. was among the first firms in the nascent Information Science industry and provided computerized data on businesses and industries. Predicasts was founded by Samuel Wolpert in 1960 Sam Wolpert said that every event in the world could be categorized by geography, time, product type, and what the transaction had occurred. His goal was to have his indexing schema categorize every event it covered that way. Early subscribers to Predicasts’ products received them in hard copy. By the early 1970’s business customers could access this information from their own computer terminals through Predicasts’ own PTS system which, at the time, was one of the largest online business information systems in the world. In 1980 Predicasts,Inc. was acquired by Indian Head, Inc., Indian Head was the U.S. subsidiary of Thyssen-Bornemisza (of the Netherlands). A Predicast product, PROMT (Predicasts Overview of Markets and Technology) is still available online. It covers companies, the products and technologies they produce, and the markets in which they compete. It includes summaries from over 900 business and trade journals, industry newsletters, market research studies, news releases, as well as investment and brokerage firm reports. “(in describing pioneers ) We must add Sam Wolpert, who developed the innovative Predicasts database. One time he said that every event in the world can be classified according to geography, product type, transaction type, and time. He set up his indexing schema along those lines. This was our first business database. It focused on chemistry and electronics and was subscribed to in hard copy form by most of SDC's chemical customers. We beat SDC to full-text title and abstract indexing and this was one of the reasons. Predicasts gave us an exclusive for a time.(1)” 1)	http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/jul03/ardito_bjorner.shtml