Thomson West to Offer Information Technology Management Services for L

EAGAN, Minn., Jan. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Thomson West, the legal profession's leading provider of integrated information solutions, today announced an array of Information Technology (IT) Management Services, providing world-class technology hosting services. IT Management Services will leverage the industry-leading Thomson West data center to provide law firms and legal organizations with secure, reliable, guaranteed storage and access to critical legal and business data, applications and archives. Thomson West is a business within The Thomson Corporation Toronto.

IT Management Services from Thomson West will be tailored to the specific technology infrastructure, applications and hosting needs of its customers, and will give them a powerful new solution for hosting, off-site back-up, recovery and operation of key practice applications and services.

The announcement comes as Thomson completes a multi-million Dollar expansion of its Eagan, Minn.-based data center infrastructure. The expansion brings more than 70,000 square feet of raised floor space, expanded utility- service-independent power capacity, hardened security features and increased network, communications and power redundancy. The Thomson data center currently hosts support experience on all major hardware platforms, operating systems and database configurations, as well as capacity for more than 500 terabytes of data.

Thomson's data center boasts the continuous availability features demanded by customers of our premium online services such as Westlaw(R), the legal profession's leading online research service, and is home to content, research services and business applications for Thomson businesses and customers around the world. Thomson is increasingly leveraging the scalability, flexibility and security of this industry-leading data infrastructure to support growth initiatives for key businesses and brands. The facility also is home to leading information and research services including CheckPoint(R) from RIA; Dialog(R) NewsRoom; and Thomson ONE from Thomson Financial. And, more than 7,000 law firm Web sites built by Thomson FindLaw, as well as practice management applications from Thomson Elite are hosted in the facility.

"In today's world, anything less than the complete security, integrity and availability of data and applications is unacceptable," said Mike Wilens, president and CEO of Thomson Legal & Regulatory North American Legal. "The Thomson data center combines industry best practices with our own technical expertise and unique understanding of the legal profession. Taken together, these capabilities provide a compelling array of services legal organizations can depend on."

"Thomson West has significant experience hosting data and applications, and unique expertise in managing information for law firms," said Brad Robbins, president and CEO of Baker Robbins, a leading provider of consulting services to legal organizations that spends considerable time helping firms understand and validate their needs in the outsourcing area. "With experienced technologists, and a world-class data center and technology infrastructure to leverage, Thomson West would appear to be in a unique position to provide significant value to law firms."

About Thomson West

For more information about Thomson West, please visit the Thomson West Web site at http://west.thomson.com/ .

About The Thomson Corporation

For more information about The Thomson Corporation, visit http://www.thomson.com/ .