Abstract
More and more of the information a company needs to know about its environment will be computerized. On-line databases will be available in remote locations and interrogated by persons being assigned gatekeeping functions in various sectors of the company. This paper describes some characteristics of the external information services sector of the information business. It reports the findings of a survey of demand for external information services among Norwegian industrial companies. It seeks to determine usage patterns on the basis of company characteristics, awareness, and experience. Attitude profiles are computed for users and non-users.