EDGAR Online, Inc. estimates that the following number of companies will be impacted by the SEC's recent phased-in mandate requiring companies to file their financial reports in XBRL format:

l          2009: 500 domestic and foreign large accelerated filers with public equity float of more than $5 billion

l          2010: 1,800 other domestic and foreign large accelerated filers

l          2011: 10,300 remaining public companies filing in GAAP or IFRS

The potential opportunity for EDGAR Online from the XBRL conversion market could be significant---if they can achieve high market penetration. EDGAR Online and R. R. Donnelley (RRD) have a partnership to provide XBRL filing services to SEC-reporting companies (See their joint TryXBRL website).

In 2008 the partnership garnered 48% of XBRL filers to the SEC (followed by 15% Merrill Corp. and 14% Bowne (BNE). In the next couple of years, as more competitors enter the field and as companies become more familiar with XBRL filing requirements, I am expecting that EDGR's market share position will decline. However, they do have a unique potential in that they have already converted U. S. companies to XBRL and have the dedicated TryXBRL website for those potential filing companies to access and study their own XBRL filings.

Using $15,000 per year per company for the above new filers at market shares of 40% for 2009, 30% for 2010, and 25% for 2011, the revenue potential would be:

l          2009 $ 3.0 mil.

l          2010 8.1 mil.

l          2011 38.6 mil.

(These compare with EDGR's $19.5 million in annual revenue for 2008 with gross margin of 83% and a net loss of $2.7 million. The company has around $35 mil. of NOLs vs. current market cap of $24 million.)

Since EDGAR Online has the only known XBRL as-reported financial database on over 12,000 companies with 10 years of XBRL data (and over 6,000 data points tagged for each company), the opportunities for providing financial information and analytics are extremely large, given the scope of the new XBRL standard. EDGAR Online's website has detailed information on its XBRL products and services.

EDGAR Online licenses XBRL as-reported fundamental data as well as XBRL analytic tools. The company's high-end I-Metrix Analytic Tool is an add-in to Excel and is also part of Thomson-Reuters' leading Checkpoint solution for tax and accounting professionals.

Although EDGAR Online finds itself in a market dominated by financial information giants (TRI, FDS, MHP, Bloomberg, MCO, and IDC), EDGR is the only company which offers full XBRL as-reported corporate data. It has taken over five years to convert corporate filings into XBRL format, develop XBRL-based analytic tools, and XBRL conversion products. Now, as the XBRL standard spreads, there are international opportunities as well (For example, EDGR has full XBRL Japanese, Korean, and Chinese data-sets available). Basic patents related to XBRL data propagation and viewing, as well as the Excel add-in tool, were filed starting in 2005.

In the U. S. there are other initiatives beyond just SEC filing including EMMA (municipals) and more recently a move to tag mortgage-backed securities.

Besides EDGAR Online's proprietary analytic products and XBRL database, the company's deep and proprietary understanding of data-mining techniques regarding the SEC's EDGAR data repository and XBRL taxonomies should present the company with many opportunities regarding strategic alliances for new products and services. Recently, they have announced new partnerships with OPEXEngine and Accelerize New Media.

Note in particular pages 8, 10, and 11 of a recent investor presentation.

Shares of EDGR have traded down sharply over the last decade, a period when the company was investing heavily and building its proprietary XBRL products and resources. EDGR's decade-long commitment to XBRL has been a truly extraordinary corporate effort. Now the SEC has finally validated and mandated the standard.

As far as I know, EDGAR Online, Inc. is the only publicly traded "pure play" on XBRL due to its having the only XBRL database, combined with leading XBRL conversion, data, and analytic tools.

If you are not familiar with XBRL filings, check out EDGR's recent 10-K filing in XBRL. To date, there have been only 141 XBRL filings with the SEC. See SEC's Interactive Financial Report Viewer.