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People who haven't used a bloomberg terminal often don't realize that its value is far greater than the data it provides. The article already mentioned network

People who haven't used a bloomberg terminal often don't realize that its value is far greater than the data it provides. The article already mentioned network effects due to chat system and other similar features. Another component of network effect is the eco-system of vendors who have built their products assuming access to bloomberg on a local machine (so they don't have to provide their own data) 24 hours a day someone is available for a live chat. If I remember correctly, hit the 'help' button twice and a chat window pops up where an actual live user answers questions. These questions can range from not understanding how to use some feature to help locating data and beyond. If the discussion is getting too involved for chat, the support person won't hesitate to call you. Bloomberg bundles in several interfaces beyond their GUI. The excel plugin, which updates your spreadsheet in real time is fantastically easy to use. Programmers can use official apis in various languages to query static data or subscribe to real-time feeds (although exchange contracts need to be signed separately). Bloomberg symbology is hugely important. People outside the industry might find it absurd that it isn't very easy to know the _name_ of the instruments being traded. Are you trading AAPL? Is it the one traded in US, Europe's various exchanges or anywhere else in the world? Are you using cusip? isin? sedol? reuters symbol? bloomberg symbol? The bbg GUI looks like it belongs to the mainframe era, but the user interface is actually very convenient for people who rely on it daily. Simple commands bring up the data you need immediately, no need to click though a bunch of menus. Upstarts will have trouble toppling bloomberg for another reason: vendor contracts are a mess. Getting the right to distribute data is very expensive. The contract costs a fair chuck of change, then the distributor must keep track of every single end-user of the data (which associated costs of technology, legal, etc.) This is the case with very standard data feeds, like New York Stock Exchange! A great deal of data comes from markets where deals are done 'over the counter.' I don't say all this to discourage anyone from trying. I've thought about this problem a bit and it certainly will be a very interesting project for whoever tries to get in the game.

iaskwhy 13y ago
I say this a lot: "You don't know what's customer support until you try Bloomberg's." It's surreal. One year and a half ago I was involved in an important project which required niche data. I was creating so many help requests I got sent a real person for a couple of hours whenever I needed. For comparison, this same project required even more data from Reuters and the replies from the support team were so bad things escalated quickly to top managers. It took some time but eventually we had a meeting with top managers from Reuters and then I finally got a real person for a couple of hours.
- tbrock 13y ago
  That is all just hand holding so you didn't go back to your boss and say the words "bloomberg didn't have the data", which is their version of a nightmare. The value is really only in the data and delivering it to you. The server side software might be wizardry as mentioned here but the client software is a joke. Want to render a chart or read a story? It uses internet explorer in as the rendering engine for you and is slower than molasses.
  - jeremyjh 13y ago
    That is all just value-added services that protect their reputation and deepen their relationship with customers. That's all.
    - vvvv 13y ago
      "That is all just value-added services that protect their reputation and deepen their relationship with customers. That's all." Surely, delighting your customers in the provision of your product/service is what a successful business is all about...
  - iaskwhy 13y ago
    You're assuming a lot there. I had to use the official source of the data and that was Reuters for around 80% of it. Bloomberg did provide their own feed for some of these cases which I ended up using as a backup in case Reuters failed. I didn't write this on the previous comment but I had much more joy working with the Bloomberg API than with the several Reuters APIs (like DataScope Select - how can a new API be like that?!).
lzhou 13y ago
Another huge thing -- Data quality. Bloomberg gets free crowd-sourced feedback on their data. Apparently, there are hedge-funds (especially for less liquid assets) that make money by finding broken data, buying something cheap (or shorting) and then calling BBG to fix their info.
intended 13y ago
The BB UI is my goto rebuttal to many site/ui revamp suggestions people make. I doubt BB will be toppled, until a breach is made in their data coverage
markovbling 13y ago
Absolutely correct that if you hit help twice, it pops up a live chat 24 hours a day. EVEN cooler is that they have some machine learning in the background that routes your query to the best department to answer your question.

iaskwhy 13y ago

I say this a lot: "You don't know what's customer support until you try Bloomberg's." It's surreal. One year and a half ago I was involved in an important project which required niche data. I was creating so many help requests I got sent a real person for a couple of hours whenever I needed. For comparison, this same project required even more data from Reuters and the replies from the support team were so bad things escalated quickly to top managers. It took some time but eventually we had a meeting with top managers from Reuters and then I finally got a real person for a couple of hours.

tbrock 13y ago
That is all just hand holding so you didn't go back to your boss and say the words "bloomberg didn't have the data", which is their version of a nightmare. The value is really only in the data and delivering it to you. The server side software might be wizardry as mentioned here but the client software is a joke. Want to render a chart or read a story? It uses internet explorer in as the rendering engine for you and is slower than molasses.
- jeremyjh 13y ago
  That is all just value-added services that protect their reputation and deepen their relationship with customers. That's all.
  - vvvv 13y ago
    "That is all just value-added services that protect their reputation and deepen their relationship with customers. That's all." Surely, delighting your customers in the provision of your product/service is what a successful business is all about...
- iaskwhy 13y ago
  You're assuming a lot there. I had to use the official source of the data and that was Reuters for around 80% of it. Bloomberg did provide their own feed for some of these cases which I ended up using as a backup in case Reuters failed. I didn't write this on the previous comment but I had much more joy working with the Bloomberg API than with the several Reuters APIs (like DataScope Select - how can a new API be like that?!).

lzhou 13y ago

Another huge thing -- Data quality. Bloomberg gets free crowd-sourced feedback on their data. Apparently, there are hedge-funds (especially for less liquid assets) that make money by finding broken data, buying something cheap (or shorting) and then calling BBG to fix their info.

intended 13y ago

The BB UI is my goto rebuttal to many site/ui revamp suggestions people make. I doubt BB will be toppled, until a breach is made in their data coverage

markovbling 13y ago

Absolutely correct that if you hit help twice, it pops up a live chat 24 hours a day. EVEN cooler is that they have some machine learning in the background that routes your query to the best department to answer your question.