Bloomberg introduced what it called a “step change” in its core business, known as the Bloomberg Professional market data service.
The Bloomberg Next service will be the latest generation of the Bloomberg Professional service, widely referred to as the Bloomberg Terminal, even though its is now delivered independently of a given piece of dedicated hardware.
In this generation, simplicity and uniformity are fundamental goals in Bloomberg’s design.
“Markets are getting more and more complex. Markets are getting more and more interconnected,’’ said vice chairman and co-founder Tom Secunda. “We have to answer these challenges. In the past, professionals, for instance, didn’t have to know about Greek interest rates or credit default swaps based on the government’s health the underlying economics of the debt or the counterparties. But now you do, he noted.
"We have redesigned the terminal to ensure that our clients get the best, fastest and most insightful answers,’’ he said.
Answers are directly provided to straightforward English entries such as: “IBM EBITDA 1999 Fourth Quarter,” he said. “We have curated our information.”
Interaction across the entire service produces uniform results with uniform color coding, for instance. “We have tried to make the system simpler,’’ he said. If you want an explanation of what a code or number means, users now hover over the item and get a response without having to look it up.
Answers to widely sought statistics are being built into results, such as the AVAT, or “average volume at time,’’ which shows the average volume of a particular stock up until the time of day at which the inquiry is made. This would show, at 2 pm., for instance, how much volume the stock normally does from opening to 2 p.m. and then compares the current result.
The system, like previous incarnations, let users drill down further. But keeps results uniform, he said.
New functions also have been added to respond to accelerating and increasingly complicated markets. Thse include ongoing monitors of divergences in trends between averages such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Dow Jones Transportation Average, so traders can spot if they are moving in decidedly different directions; stock and bond returns are adjusted and weighted for inflation and forms of qualitative risk analysis have been added to measure and warn of possible losses.
More than 100,000 clients have of the 310,000 existing subscribers converted to Bloomberg Next.
The service is the result of a multi-year design process conducted by Bloomberg Research & Development and is the product of the work of more than 3,000 technologists.
In addition, a select group of clients volunteered to allow Bloomberg to review keystrokes and commands most commonly used across an array of functions
The service can be used from any Internet-connected desktop computer and from Android, BlackBerry and Apple iOS mobile devices, such as the iPad and iPhone.
The new design emphasizes simplicity. Bloomberg has cut the 30,000 functions available in its previous desktop product by about half. And the Next service tries to provide more direct answers – and suggest related information that the user might want to check out, as well.
Bloomberg connects to 447 exchange feeds and clients have access to over 369 exchanges.
