The ConEst partnership is intended to build stronger synergies between Trade Service’s content and ConEst’s estimating software.

“In order for our customers to increase their profitability – which results from delivering competitive estimates – they need to fuel their systems with accurate and up-to-date content,” said George Hague, ConEst’s president. “ConEst is committed to providing our customers with solutions that allow them to achieve this goal, and our expanded relationship with Trade Service demonstrates that commitment.”

John Henry, Trade Service’s Director of Corporate Communications, said that over the past six month, Trade Service has worked with major end-user software companies to help them develop accessibility to Trade Service’s TRA-SER® product and pricing program so users can use it in conjunction with their estimating applications.

“We’re coming out with a new version of TRA-SER, and we want to make sure that we engage those folks on a much more regular basis,” he said. “It used to be on an ad-hoc basis. Now we’re setting up regular dialogue so we can address product issues, customer issues, business issues, relationship issues, and make sure we stay on track meeting our goals and objectives. It’s just better to do it in a more formalized way.”

In addition to its expanded relationship with ConEst, Trade Service has formed partnerships with Accubid, Concord, Ontario; Estimation, Inc., Linthicum Heights, Maryland and ComputerEase Software Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio.

Estimation Inc. provides estimating, purchasing and business management solutions for the electrical, mechanical and HVAC trade.

The agreement will strengthen the relationship between the Trade Service pricing and product data and Estimation software products.

“The contractor industry has expressed their need for high-performance solutions that integrate well with one another since time and money savings are critical to their success,” said Alan Mech, president of Estimation. “The powerful link between Estimation’s software and Trade Service’s content will offer our customers the comprehensive, streamlined and quality solution they require to achieve their business objectives.”

ComputerEase offers Windows-based programs designed to tackle accounting and project management tasks such as job and equipment costing, scheduling, document and inventory control, billing, union reporting and service management.

About Trade Service
Trade Service Corporation is the leading provider of standardized product and price information to the electrical, plumbing/PVF, HVACR, industrial MRO, and office products industries. Since 1931, the company has been the leader in content acquisition, aggregation, management, publishing, and distribution, offering a variety of products, services, and systems to meet the content needs of over 20,000 distributors, contractors, government agencies and “buy side” Fortune 1000 subscribers. The range of solutions provided includes printed directories, electronic catalogs, pricing data for business system updating, and robust attributed content to fuel full-functioning Internet storefronts. For more information, visit www.tradeservice.com.