content_image/187002.jpg
In December 2009, we began publishing research and ratings on corporate credit issuers. We entered into our first credit research agreement with a major financial services firm to provide credit ratings and research to its 18,000 financial advisors beginning in the third quarter of 2010. The firm’s internal credit research team also has access to Morningstar Select, our institutional credit research platform. Although the revenue impact in 2010 was not significant, we believe this credit research agreement gives us an important foothold in this new area. 

We also offer a variety of financial communications and newsletters, other investment software, and investment indexes. 

This segment represented approximately 80% of our consolidated revenue in 2010, 2009, and 2008, respectively. 

<img src='content_image/187002.jpg'>

## Revenue 

Revenue from our Investment Information segment increased $58.3 million, or 15.1%, to $445.0 million in 2010. Acquisitions contributed $40.4 million of revenue in 2010 primarily from LIM, Realpoint, OBSR, and CPMS. Revenue from acquisitions represents approximately 10 percentage points of the revenue increase in 2010. Excluding acqui- sitions, higher revenue in our software, data, and investment research products and services more than offset the loss of $12.5 million of revenue from GARS, which expired at the end of July 2009. Organic revenue for our software product lines was up approx- imately $18.2 million, driven by Morningstar.com, Morningstar Direct, and to a lesser extent from Advisor Workstation and Site Builder and Licensed Tools. 

In 2009, revenue for our Investment Information segment declined $4.1 million. Acquisitions contributed $25.9 million to segment rev- enue in 2009, partially offsetting the $30.0 million revenue decline experienced across a number of our product lines, including the loss of $9.4 million of GARS revenue in 2009. Revenue from our invest- ment research products was down $17.2 million, or 24.1%. Approximately $9.4 million of the decrease resulted from the end of GARS and an additional $3.2 million of the decrease reflects lower revenue from investment newsletters. Organic revenue for software product lines was down about $5.1million, or 2.2%, driven by a $6.4 million decline in the U.S. version of Morningstar.com and a $0.3 million revenue decline in advisor software. These declines were partly offset by a $2.4 million revenue increase for institutional software and data-related products and services. 

Revenue for Morningstar.com, which includes Internet advertising sales and Premium Membership subscriptions, was the primary driver of the segment revenue increase in 2010. In 2010, positive trends in Internet advertising sales were partially offset by contin- ued decline in Premium Membership revenue in the United States. Internet advertising increased 76.2% in 2010, after declining 36.9% in 2009. Subscriptions for the U.S. version of the Morningstar.com Premium service declined to 138,732 as of December 31, 2010 com- pared with 150,473 as of December 31, 2009, and 177,518 as of December 31, 2008. The shortfall in revenue was due to a weak trial pipeline but we believe our retention efforts stemmed the rate of decline in subscriptions in 2010. In addition, we moderately increased subscription prices for U.S. Premium Membership in both January 2010 and 2009, which partly offset the revenue decline associated with lower subscription levels. 

Morningstar Direct made positive contributions to segment revenue in both 2010 and 2009. The number of licenses for Morningstar Direct increased to 4,773 worldwide as of December 31, 2010, com- pared with 3,524 as of December 31, 2009 and 2,961as of December 31, 2008, with strong growth in the U.S. and internationally. The growth in licenses reflects additional licenses for both new and existing clients, as well as client migrations to Morningstar Direct from Institutional Workstation. 

