Jerry,
Phone-number to call Interquote is 414-697-7770.
Fee is $69.99 per month for continous real-time updates. If you book one full year you get 20 or 25% discount (can't remember exactly..).
I have been using them since May 1996 and try to list a few pros and cons below (based on the latest version 2.4.6. for Windows95):
They had some problems with traffic lately, but I was told that they would add new servers this weekend (Feb 1/2).
The "basic" part of their software works very well, i.e. you get all the fields you could think off updating continously and with arrows showing the direction of the last tick.
Advantage is also,that you can use most of the formulas etc. that you use in Excel, so you can define your own cumputed fields and can set up a sheet to have real-time protfolio valuation. A few bugs still to be fixed, but overall this works very well.
They have a *definite* problem with ticker-symbol changes which sometimes only come through a week later or so. I complained bitterly about this one. They told me they are working on this as a very first priority.
Also their Ticker-Lookup facility is not really up-to-date.
On their latest versions, they have now added an "Alert" and a "Chart" facility.
The Alert works well, giving you a visible and accoustic signal when a field you select reaches a defined level (i.e. volume above a certain quantity, bid below a certain price etc..)
The Chart facility is good from a concept point of view. You can have tick-by-tick or historic charting in various ways, including 3D.
However, from a practicability point this is still pretty useless, as you cannot save the chart-layout (at least so far nobody from Interquote could tell me how to do it..). So once you put all the time and effort to set up your chart of choice, once you close the chart, it.s gone for good..... Some work to do to make this really work well.
Overall, I get the impression they are working hard on improvements, with a new minor-release about every 1-2 weeks. These can be downloaded separatly, i.e. you don't have to download the full package (about 5MB) each time.
On tick-to-tick over the Net, this is probably first choice, however, as many thinks on the Net (like good voice or even video transmission), first choice is still far from perfect. ....
Hope you find this short summary usefull. Their website is interquote.com
I would love to hear from other people about their experiences. Maybe we should setup a "Usergroup" to coordinate improvment proposals and suggestions.
Also, if there is another tick-to-tick real-time system over the net I would love to hear about it to try it out....
All the best
Burkhard |
