John Kastner, Chidanand Apt& James Griesmer, Se June Hong, Maurice Karnaugh, Eric Mays, and Yoshio Tozawa

Introduction This article describes the initial stages of an effort to develop a knowledge-based financial marketing consultant system. The project for Financial Marketing Expertise (FAME), is to produce a system that addresses the area usually referred to asfinnncial nzarketing. This term characterizes the financial decision processes used in the marketing of products and services of such large scale that they can significantly impact a company's financial status. In particular, our project emphasizes financial marketing as it applies to the marketing of computers. For instance, a customer interested in buying computing technology on a large scale is usually concerned that the financing plan being used to acquire the technology is safe, sound, and attractive from a financial investment point of view. Therefore, in making very large sales, financial considerations often become as important as the computing considerations. We have found financial marketing to be a very interesting and ...