HP Financial Services Hewlett-Packard is a huge company with many markets, many customers and many clients. The Financial Services page is but one portion of its corporate Web site, and here you'll find an overview of products and "solutions" that H.P. offers to high-end financial, insurance and retail banking clients. These clean, professional-looking (though rather sterile) pages describe H.P.'s expertise and offerings in each area. If you're looking for descriptions and prices of actual products, most of the lingua franca is brochure-speak, although the Technical Library does contain useful product briefs, data sheets and white papers. -KW

C+

Inter-Mark Inter-Mark presents pages of text on its company products: Internet access, Web page creation and maintenance, and online advertising and marketing services. A single internal link shoots you to a customer list, while other links send you to pages the company has built or manages. Richer information would be necessary to encourage customers to actually turn to Inter-Mark for business: What are the tools? How do they work? What specifically has the company done for each client? Without this kind of information, there's little reason to visit Inter-Mark.-KW

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The Stock Solution Surely the Web was made for sites like The Stock Solution, which licenses stock photography for one-time use. It's easy to preview images, search a database of some 200,000 photos, and locate a comprehendible price and order scheme. Because TSS provides digital images, you can request a custom search, which you'll receive via e-mail; much more efficient and cheaper than the research fee most stock houses charge. You can search files alphabetically, or scan sample images from broad categories: nature, people, wildlife, etc.. A special bonus: The page is well-written, and well-executed. Good job, TSS! -KW

A

Welcome to FINDEX St Clair Financial Index FINDEX is a search index of worldwide financial institutions. You can search by category (r.e., banks, trust companies and stock exchanges, etc.), or by geographical location. You can also enter a keyword, and see what comes up. FINDEX is in fact a helpful front door filter for all the individual pages put up by companies already on the Web. Of course, the drawback of a front door is that the quality of company information you receive varies widely. Even so, if you want to research a U.S. financial market, compare services between Canadian banks, or locate an Australian insurer, this is a handy starting place.-KW

B-

Words of Mouth An excellent idea gone awry. Words of Mouth is a Canadian speakers' bureau that fronts the Web sites of a number of business consultants and motivators. The homepage encourages editors seeking pithy quotes and articles to scan links below. Topics include teamwork, change, and risk-taking. So far so good, right? But when you choose a link (actually, the name of speaker), all you get is a marketing brochure and contact information. You *don't* get any words of wisdom that would indicate the value of these sages! Come on, Words of Mouth. If you're touting wise thoughts and stirring ideas, do share. -KW

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