Before I provide opinion, a story about my family. My grandfather on my father’s side was living with his big sister, mother, and father in Constantinople (which, as the song kinda goes, is now known as Istanbul, Turkey). The year was 1915, and he was nine years old. As the Ottoman Empire began to fall apart, the targeted killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks kicked into full force. My great grandparents took my grandfather to the port (located on a hill) to get him and my aunt onto a Greek ocean liner, which was only accepting children. My great grandparents were left on the hill to die.

It’s taken 106 years, but on Saturday, April 24—which is what’s known as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day—Joe Biden became the first US president to formally recognize the killing of 1.5 million Armenians as the Ottoman Empire crumbled as a genocide.

Those outside of the Armenian diaspora might not understand the significance of this official statement, but it’s not a political thing; it’s simply about acknowledging facts and history. While it’s just words on paper, I found it to be embarrassing that we as a nation cared more about geopolitical strategy over speaking truth and simply acknowledging a genocide that happened over a century ago.

I’ll get off my soapbox now, since 99% of you probably won’t give a shit about this. Let’s get to the important stuff…like fintech.

Data storage isn’t free (anymore?)

Last November, Google announced that it would no longer allow users to store photos and videos for free on its servers. As a columnist in USA Today put it, “Google turned its back on consumers Wednesday and says we’ll all have to start paying as of June 1^st.” (Emphasis my own.)

Indeed. How dare those dirty bastards at Google not provide this service for free for the rest of time—don’t the execs at the Silicon Valley giant work for us, after all?! Ah, shit…no…that’s right…Google is a for-profit, public company, and they made a calculated decision to start charging for a service that costs them money to provide. Those execs are betting that customers like the service enough (and/or that they’re lazy enough) that they’ll simply pay a couple extra dollars a month to get a hundred extra gigs of storage. Fear not! The six different angles of your head in a cool hat can stand the test of time!

Even though it’s getting cheaper to store data, the amount of data that regulators require trading firms to keep, and the amount of data that trading firms want to keep for trading/risk/stress testing/customer relationship/surveillance purposes, are both rapidly rising.

I can understand why people who are financially strapped are upset—they’re making ends meet as best as they can already without having to pay Google’s parent Alphabet (a company that did quite well for itself during the pandemic) more money for a simple service. But there’s not a gun being held to anyone’s head, either. There are free (or cheaper) alternatives out there, or users can show better discipline in deciding which photos/videos are actually worthy of saving until the apocalypse happens. Either way, Google will either feel the wrath of users, or users will pay Google for the service, and profits will continue to go up (which, by the way, will allow for more research and development of new products and services—some of which might be made available for free…for a certain period of time, anyway).

This brings me to another massive tech company that is both at times beloved and reviled by users and the capital markets community—Bloomberg.

This past week, Josephine Gallagher broke the news that the vendor is planning to shorten the default data retention period for which communications data will be accessible via its Terminal and messaging platforms from five years to two years. There’s a fair amount of complexity to this story that I won’t get into here—you can read the story here…if you’re a subscriber, of course!—but, suffice it to say, not everyone on the buy side applauded this decision by Bloomberg.

Now, just like with Google, I have no clue whatsoever whether or not this decision by Bloomberg execs is a good one, or a misstep that they’ll have to reverse or “enhance” at a later date. What I do know is this: even though it’s getting cheaper to store data, the amount of data that regulators require trading firms to keep, and the amount of data that trading firms want to keep for trading/risk/stress testing/customer relationship/surveillance purposes, are both rapidly rising.

So Bloomberg decided that it would start charging to keep data past two years. In 2010, the vendor made a similar move, informing users that its retention policy was changing from infinite storage to five years, and that any firm wishing to store its communications data for longer than five years would have to subscribe to its Vault service. And you know what, it might one day decide that two years is too long, too. Or, there could be another revolution in the data storage space that makes keeping an endless heap of data for the rest of time feasible, and Bloomberg and Google (and others) will once again allow users to store data for free for forever.

What I do believe, though, is that Google and Bloomberg are not going to be alone in making these types of moves around data storage, and trading firms better start to plan for that in the future in how they budget and sign contracts—this shouldn’t be something that catches people totally off guard. As social media once taught us, if you’re not paying for a service, you’re the product. That’s the decision that tech firms of all stripes will continue to ponder: Why are we providing this for free? What do we gain? Are we better served charging customers for this? Will there be a backlash? Can we survive that backlash?

Vendors are going to continue to make these calculations, and there absolutely will be other companies like Bloomberg that will come to the same conclusion—our clients like our service enough that they won’t leave over an issue like this (or, they’re simply lazy or overburdened and will just sign the check). But this is the finance industry, and people might want to stop being shocked by companies looking to grow profits and cut their own costs. This will not stop with Bloomberg.

Or, maybe I’m wrong, and you think I’m a shill for Big Tech. I’ve got thick skin…let me know what you think: anthony.malakian@infopro-digital.com.

Can giant killers exist anymore? Could they ever?

Ah shit…I have to write about Bloomberg one more time.

On Thursday, Max Bowie broke the news that Money.Net has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. This story, too, is a bit complex, so I won’t get into the details of the company’s legal troubles.

What is interesting for this column, though, is that the market data workstation provider tried to make a name by touting itself as a low-cost alternative to the Bloomberg Terminal. We wrote this back in 2013: In addition to investment advisors—most of whom want to license the product and provide it to their advisor network as a white-label solution—the vendor is also seeing demand from firms wanting to replace premium terminals in their back offices. “For us to be selling hundreds or thousands of seats for non-trading floor employees is just a start. We have a plan to have 90% of the content available on Bloomberg over the next 24 months, and have 75% of their analytics,” said then-CEO HL Van Arnem. (Van Arnem, as Max explains in that Thursday story, ran into legal trouble that plays into this bankruptcy announcement. He also passed away in 2018 at 44 years old of natural causes.)

In 2014, Morgan Downey joined the vendor as CEO, and, as Max writes, embarked on a series of ambitious expansions to upgrade the platform, including adding new content and tools—from cryptocurrencies to a proprietary artificial intelligence (AI)-generated news service and integration with quant tools—and partners, such as an alliance with OpenFin to broaden its exposure, making itself available via Symphony Communication Services’ platform, and joining LPL Financial’s partner program. The company also poached several former Bloomberg employees to help it gain traction.

It didn’t work, but I enjoyed the few conversations Downey and I had in the past, and I think he had some interesting, unique ideas.

Fact is, the term “Bloomberg killer” gets thrown around a lot. It’s an easy way for vendors to market their product and get media outlets to run “Bloomberg killer” in their headlines next to the vendor’s name, and those media outlets get clicks, in return. Shit, even before “clicks” existed, in 1990, we ran this as a headline “Levkoff The Brain Behind Reuters’ Bloomberg Killer” and followed it up in 1991 with this, “Another Year On: Where Is Reuters’ Decisions 2000 Bloomberg-Killer?”

Which brings me to Symphony, another company that got tagged with the “Bloomberg killer” moniker. It’s not something that we ever played into—hopefully because of past experience—but there’s no question that when Symphony launched with the backing of several Wall Street giants, the target was Bloomberg. CEO David Gurle would always object to that characterization, but it certainly didn’t hurt marketing efforts for media outlets to make the comparison.

There’s a larger question: Is there a market in the terminal/workstation space for innovative startups to take real market share from the likes of Bloomberg, Refinitiv, FactSet, etcetera, and do that independently without falling into the seemingly-endless cycle of consolidation?

Two weeks ago, the fine folks at Business Insider got the exclusive that Gurle was stepping down as CEO, to be replaced by Brad Levy. (We broke the news that Symphony had poached Levy from IHS Markit, for what it’s worth. And one of the writers for BI to break the Gurle-Levy story was Dan DeFrancesco, a former WT reporter…ok, ok…I’ll stop being bitter that we weren’t first.)

Actually, you know what, no, let’s get extemporaneous for a moment (is that possible when writing a story that will be edited? Who gives a shit? This is my column, and I’ll write what I like, right?). So I wrote this in August, because Levy taking over for Gurle was a widely-discussed rumor: “Finally, it will be interesting to see how Levy’s role at Symphony expands over the coming months and years. When talking to sources at competing firms, there are those who believe that if David Gurle, Symphony’s CEO, were to ever leave the company that he essentially started as a company called Perzo in 2012, Levy would be the natural choice to take the reins. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. For now, let’s see how Symphony continues to expand its offering after announcing Symphony 2.0 last fall.”

Ok, but whatever…I didn’t break the news properly. Not bitter. Nope, not at all. Anyway…

You know what story we did get exclusively? Well, on Thursday, Reb Natale broke the news that Symphony has suspended its Sparc offering indefinitely, as the vendor is engaged in ongoing talks with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) about the service’s registration status. As our colleagues at Risk.net wrote in 2018, Symphony was trying to “march on Bloomberg” with the introduction of Sparc. 

So what’s my point? (It’s a fantastic question—I leave for a two-week vacation the second I file this column.) First, let’s stop referring to a company as a “Bloomberg killer.” One day Mike Bloomberg will sell his baby and retire (at least from cap markets tech, anyway). What happens after that is anyone’s guess (but I’ll put $20 on Microsoft one day buying Bloomberg or Symphony…any takers?).

In the meantime, though, I think there’s a larger question: Is there a market in the terminal/workstation space for innovative startups to take real market share from the likes of Bloomberg, Refinitiv, FactSet, etcetera, and do that independently without falling into the seemingly-endless cycle of consolidation?

My answer is yes, though we are a few years away. And it will come thanks to…app interoperability! Yes! I finally turned this column into another app interop story! I’ve earned my vacation…I’m out!

Seriously, I do believe this, but I’ve written about it before. With that said, I’d like to hear from you: Is there a market in the terminal/workstation space for innovative startups to gain traction? And why/why not? Hit me up: anthony.malakian@infopro-digital.com.

The image at the top of the page is Henri Rousseau’s “The War,” courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s open access program.