the earliest proponents of computer-based videotex. Videotex technology was also adopted for use internally within organizations. Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) offered a videotex product (VTX) on the VAX system. Goldman Sachs, for one, adopted and developed an internal fixed income information distribution and bond sales system based on DEC VTX. Internal systems were overtaken by external vendors, notably Bloomberg, which offered the additional benefit of providing information from different firms and allowing interactive communication between the firms. One of the earliest corporations to participate in videotex in the United States was American Express. Its service, branded "American Express ADVANCE" included card account info, travel booking, stock prices from Shearson Lehman, and even online shopping, through its Merchandise Services division. Australia Australia's national public Videotex service, Viatel, was launched by Telecom Australia on 28 February 1985. It was based on the British Prestel service. The service was later renamed Discovery 40, in reference to its 40 column screen format, as well as to distinguish it from another Telecom service, Discovery 80. The Viatel system had a very rapid take up in its first year due to the efforts of GEC Manager Terry Crews and his pioneering work on home banking for the Commonwealth Bank. New Zealand A private service known as TAARIS (Travel Agents Association Reservation and Information Service) was launched in New Zealand in 1985 for the Travel Agents Association of New Zealand by ICL Computers. This service used ICL's proprietary "Bulletin" software which was based on the Prestelstandard but provided many additional facilities such as the ability to run additional software for specific applications. It also supported a proprietary email service. Netherlands In the Netherlands the then state-owned phone company PTT (now KPN) operated two platforms: Viditel (launched in 1980) and Videotex Nederland. From the user perspective the main difference between these systems was that Viditel used standard dial-in phone numbers where Videotex used premium-rate telephone numbers. For Viditel you needed a (paid) subscription and on top of that you paid for each page you visited. For Videotex services you normally didn't need a subscription nor was there the need to authenticate: you paid for the services via the premium rate of the modem-connection based on connection time, regardless of the pages or services you retrieved. From the information-provider point of view there were huge differences between Viditel and Videotex: Via Viditel all data was normally stored on the