Bloomberg co-founder Tom Secunda and global head of financial product strategy and development Jean-Paul Zammitt are set to make this morning “a significant announcement related to the Bloomberg Professional service” at the company’s headquarters in New York.
The announcement is expected to cover a $100 million makeover of its namesake Bloomberg data service, that gave rise in its infancy to the Bloomberg terminals used widely on Wall Street and by financial markets firms in general. Roughly 310,000 subscribers currently use the service, worldwide.
New functionality in how the service will handle information on trades in stocks, bonds and foreign exchange will be made at the company’s headquarters on Lexington Avenue.
The new version of service will be called Next and the Financial Times Monday
The choice of name harkens back to the NeXT Computer and operating system developed by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, recently deceased. But was chosen independently.
The new design emphasizes simplicity. Bloomberg has cut the 30,000 functions available in its previous desktop product by about half.
The Next service will try to head off any defections to a new graphically rich data service design from Thomson Reuters called Eikon. The FT reported that the new Eikon service has attracted 16,000 subscribers.
The new design emphasizes simplicity. Bloomberg has cut the 30,000 functions available in its previous desktop product by about half.
The downturn in financial markets has the hit revenues of market data providers including Bloomberg, FactSet and Thomson Reuters. FactSet reported the number of users declined by 1,200 to 46,900 in the quarter ending November 1. The New York Times reported that Bloomberg lost 600 subscriptions — worth approximately $1 million a month — just when MF Global went bust.
Firms with 16 or 17 Bloomberg terminals might decide only six or seven key people need them, Mark Coriaty, director of strategic partnerships at Eze Castle Integration, a Boston-based firm which provides a full range of trading and accounting, told Forbes.
Late last year, Thomson Reuters named a new chief operating officer and said it would restructure its operating divisions.
