Thomson Aims to Beef Up Scientific Arm

Aiming to grow the end-to-end services of its Thomson Scientific and Healthcare arm, Thomson Corp. Monday acquired digital content delivery firm Techstreet, which specializes in providing full-text industry standards and specifications to engineers, researchers, and technical and information professionals.

"This business provides Thomson a key source of foundational content that is required by our customers," said Mike Tansey, chief executive officer of Thomson Scientific. "Adding Techstreet makes Thomson a stronger one stop resource for technical and intellectual property information for engineering research and development -- delivering patents, journal literature and standards information."

Techstreet delivers full-text standards and specifications from Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) like the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the British Standards Institution (BSI), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and many others. Thomson said the firm has one of the world's largest collections of industry standards and specifications, most available in both print and electronic format, via either subscription or single-document delivery.

Techstreet also has a large collection of technical books, materials property data and technical training -- from more than a thousand publishers, industry associations and technical societies -- under its belt. Thomson noted this collection is searchable online and covers subjects ranging from research to design, manufacturing, testing and inspection in industries like electrical and electronics, petrochemical, architecture and construction, food safety and public health, wastewater engineering, information technology and aerospace/aviation.

Techstreet also supplies Web-based tools to help subscribers access and manager their informational resources.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Thomson said it will fold Techstreet in with Thomson Scientific and Healthcare. Gregg Hammerman, president of Techstreet, and Andrew Bank, vice president of business development at the firm, will manage the company within Thomson.