FreeTradeZone site moving to subscription-only for older parts

Frankly, though it would be useful on the job, it's hard to imagine a small shop being able to justify this level of expense for the relatively small percentage of the information that proved both useful and correct. On those occasions on which I did find what I was looking for the information was often so out-of-date that it really didn't matter. Data sheets, of course, don't change much, but their pointers to existing inventory "out there" in distribution usually were a wild-goose-chase. With the 10% success rate I experienced on parts I wanted, I've got to say it's not likely I'd pay $300/mo even if I had a dozen engineers using their research support. If I had a hundred purchasing guys, that might be different, except for the low success rate. It might be worth paying for this service if their links were kept current, and if one had the $10e9 procurement budget against which to justify such a high monthly cost. There have been numerous occasions on which GOOGLE has found parts they (PartMiner/FreeTradeZone) didn't, both in terms of data sheets and in existing inventory. I'd not pay for their service until they exceed by at least 100x the success rate of a public serach engine. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Knibbs" <mark_k(a)totalise.co.uk> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Cc: <mark_k(a)totalise.co.uk> Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 4:35 AM Subject: FreeTradeZone site moving to subscription-only for older parts