Unless it is fitted with new technology, it will not meet the rising demand from mainstream clients.Yet Knight-Ridder Information has one thing MAID doesn't: content. Its databases are accessible on any personal computer, through the Internet, with no extra kit needed.The chief asset MAID would bring to the link is its advanced technology and in particular its much-praised InfoSort software, a theme-based search system.Like other information services developed before the PC and the Internet became household tools, Knight-Ridder Information has become something of a dinosaur. Knight-Ridder, committed to its core newspapers, could use the cash: in May, it and the Walt Disney Company spent $1.65bn buying four papers."Knight-Ridder has not been able to grow the business," Wagner says "Revenues have been flat for many years. But there may be synergies that make a big difference." Analysts agree that if MAID's innovative technology and distribution can be married to Knight-Ridder's extensive databases and client list, it could be a sweet deal.MAID - an acronym for Market Analysis Information Database - is essentially an electronic library that offers material ranging from company statistics and reports to stock market and commodity prices, agency bulletins and sector reports. He's not deferential."It's no surprise that the acquisition of Knight-Ridder Information would raise questions, since the business is barely profitable The Miami-based publisher is clearly eager to offload it.

"People view him as a marketing guy, a motor mouth," says Keith Woolcock, technology analyst at Merrill Lynch in London "He's really more like an American entrepreneur. "If they can pull this off, they're immediately catapulted into being a much, much bigger player."In the world of on-line business information, MAID's competitors all come from publishing heavyweights - the Financial Times' FT Profile, Dow Jones' News Retrieval, Reed Elsevier's Lexis-Nexis, and Reuters' Business Briefing.In the past few years Wagner has largely won over analysts and technology experts, but the mainstream still doesn't trust him. Its $250m (pounds 155m) revenues dwarf MAID's $41.6m.Yet the response has been mostly favourable. "It's an audacious move just because it's so much money, and when it comes down to it MAID is still a small player," says Paul Blake, editor of the London-based Information World Review.

I've still got a fair amount of time to go." This from a man criticised for years in the financial community for his flamboyant ways. But now Wagner - who has a pounds 35m stake in his pounds 219m company - needs the support of the finance sector.For a company that has suffered two years of losses, sliding subscription revenues and a roller-coaster share price, the acquisition of a troubled business like Knight-Ridder Information might look ambitious. When word leaked last week that his London-based media company, MAID, was making a pounds 300m bid for Knight-Ridder Information, the 34-year-old chief executive known for his exuberance - some might say arrogance - was doing his best to eat humble pie. "It's good to accept you've made mistakes," says Wagner, who founded the on-line business information provider in 1984 "I've only had 13 years running a company. Perhaps it's not surprising that Dan Wagner is apologetic. A friend calls the Chartered Institute of Marketing to request information about its marketing diploma courses The number listed in the phone book does not exist any more Some persistence with directory inquiries elicits another number; this one works The friend asks for the course material, gives an address to which it should be sent, and sits back to await its arrival Ten days later, nothing has come The friend phones again and asks the Institute to check its database to see if the package has been sent "We don't have a database," says the CIM representative "We just write the addresses straight on to the envelope and send it off" The friend asks for the material to be sent again Two days later the package arrives A day after that another identical package arrivesSuch shortcomings would be would be annoying, but not entirely unsurprising, in a company But the Chartered Institute of Marketing? Wonders never cease Its members are hereby invited to have a whip round to buy a much- needed copy of Lotus Organiser, or equivalent. We cannot rely on the system turning up another Branson naturally.