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Yeah I think in retrospect this comment was sort of silly. We all read this post hoping that they were giving away a real time free financial data API (that wo

Yeah I think in retrospect this comment was sort of silly. We all read this post hoping that they were giving away a real time free financial data API (that would be huge), but really that's how they make money. They just want to change their model a bit and have everyone able to access it easily by becoming a data API customer. It's probably a good move for them but I don't like the way they and the press covering this aren't mentioning that all it is is access to the same API as before without having to purchase the terminal now. (this is conjecture as I still haven't heard back) Edit ... their response that confirms it: Hello Travis, Thank you for your inquiry. The Open BLPAPI initiative is meant to present the API as a free-use technology, but the Bloomberg content and data services from Bloomberg are still licensed products. Our goal is to give you the freedom to develop applications using the API, and once subscribed to a licensed data service from Bloomberg you would be able to access the content. Regards, Bloomberg Open Market Data Initiative

Ecio78 15y ago
So, what's the difference between this and the current (previous?) access model where you use their already existing API to interact with their systems? The only difference seems that they have published the API and you dont need to have a real bloomberg machine in order to build your code around them.. am i wrong?
- justincormack 15y ago
  Before this, even if you paid you still did not get api access. Or any documentation. They act as if it is still an analogue teletext service right down to the ghastly UI. The terms of service forbid you from storing the data. This seems to be some sort of tentative step out of the twentieth century.
  - Ecio78 15y ago
    afaik (please somebody correct me if i'm wrong) if you pay for a bloomberg workstation you can download API and use it on your system, but you're limited to using it on a licensed workstation (you cant interface another system in order to pull these data) and you cant pass it without elaborating them so, as example: NO you cant use a program on the licensed workstation that sucks data and push them to a database that is used to power a website that shows stock prices NO you cant get the data from that workstation from other computers via API YES you can create a custom C++ program that runs on your licensed bloomberg workstation that get data via API, elaborate them with your own algo and give you signals for buy/sell (or maybe create a report that you send to your customers)
    - apaprocki 15y ago
      This is basically correct. Anyone with a terminal can program against it and use the "desktop" API (the SDK connecting to the terminal). The same for any customer with just an API appliance. To extend your example, some customers use it to process realtime data, mix in their own data that they do not want to leave their network, then perform some kind of algo on it, and ultimately use the API SDK to feed the results back to Bloomberg for publishing. The SDK is used by publishers who feed content to us -- it isn't just for receiving data.
  - xelk 15y ago
    The market data feed and the terminal are two separate products, priced and sold independently. Bloomberg Professional (aka Terminal): http://www.bloomberg.com/professional/ http://www.bloomberg.com/professional/ Enterprise Solutions: http://www.bloomberg.com/enterprise/ http://www.bloomberg.com/enterprise/ http://www.bloomberg.com/enterprise/enterprise_products/data_optimization/data_feeds/ http://www.bloomberg.com/enterprise/enterprise_products/data... The latter obviously provides programmatic access to the real-time data, whereas the former is mostly intended for homo sapiens users.
apaprocki 15y ago
You never needed a terminal in order to use our API. We sell a managed 2U appliance that either the customer or we can host and it only serves the data feed.

Ecio78 15y ago

So, what's the difference between this and the current (previous?) access model where you use their already existing API to interact with their systems? The only difference seems that they have published the API and you dont need to have a real bloomberg machine in order to build your code around them.. am i wrong?

justincormack 15y ago
Before this, even if you paid you still did not get api access. Or any documentation. They act as if it is still an analogue teletext service right down to the ghastly UI. The terms of service forbid you from storing the data. This seems to be some sort of tentative step out of the twentieth century.
- Ecio78 15y ago
  afaik (please somebody correct me if i'm wrong) if you pay for a bloomberg workstation you can download API and use it on your system, but you're limited to using it on a licensed workstation (you cant interface another system in order to pull these data) and you cant pass it without elaborating them so, as example: NO you cant use a program on the licensed workstation that sucks data and push them to a database that is used to power a website that shows stock prices NO you cant get the data from that workstation from other computers via API YES you can create a custom C++ program that runs on your licensed bloomberg workstation that get data via API, elaborate them with your own algo and give you signals for buy/sell (or maybe create a report that you send to your customers)
  - apaprocki 15y ago
    This is basically correct. Anyone with a terminal can program against it and use the "desktop" API (the SDK connecting to the terminal). The same for any customer with just an API appliance. To extend your example, some customers use it to process realtime data, mix in their own data that they do not want to leave their network, then perform some kind of algo on it, and ultimately use the API SDK to feed the results back to Bloomberg for publishing. The SDK is used by publishers who feed content to us -- it isn't just for receiving data.
- xelk 15y ago
  The market data feed and the terminal are two separate products, priced and sold independently. Bloomberg Professional (aka Terminal): http://www.bloomberg.com/professional/ http://www.bloomberg.com/professional/ Enterprise Solutions: http://www.bloomberg.com/enterprise/ http://www.bloomberg.com/enterprise/ http://www.bloomberg.com/enterprise/enterprise_products/data_optimization/data_feeds/ http://www.bloomberg.com/enterprise/enterprise_products/data... The latter obviously provides programmatic access to the real-time data, whereas the former is mostly intended for homo sapiens users.

apaprocki 15y ago

You never needed a terminal in order to use our API. We sell a managed 2U appliance that either the customer or we can host and it only serves the data feed.