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Two things here are sad; 1. the firm is taking on massive debt that I can't see it being able to service long term.  So I'm guessing in a few years management and new ownership will finish the long ongoing destruction of this great company that I've been both a customer of and employee of.  2. Giving up such a great name - amazingly stupid. The greatest name in news and data and the technology needed to get that data distributed within financial institutions.  The new name means zilch, nada, nothing.  Despite the awful management, I've been proud to have worked there.  But I think that soon the great Reuters company will be mainly a memory.

If anyone I've known and worked with in the Market Data industry has the talent and intense drive needed to get Google to do this, it would be Rich.  He is easily one of the most intelligent and capable people out there, so this absolutely bears watching.  Certainly, the industry could use a real shakeup.  I'm not trying to see Thomson Reuters or Bloomberg bumped out - no real worry there, but Google could make real inroads on the 'affordable' end of this business.  And maybe they'd have the power and influence to affect the way exchanges distribute and charge for their data.

About 25 years ago I walked into a new job as a programmer / analyst / AVP, and was tasked with rewriting an account manager inquiry system where users would look up their clients loans, securities and the like.  Original system providing the data was very hard to use, so these bankers wouldn't touch it.  A redo had already failed, because it had the exact same look and feel of the original system.  The manager wanted an identical redo - and I said NO.  I created a new terminal (VT100) based GUI simple enough for a child to use, and built the new inquiry system using taht GUI.  I prototyped the system, demo'd it, then built it, and the users accepted it.  Sounds simple, but I had to fight to get to do it in a way the users could handle.

Frank is one of the few execs worthy of respect when he was at Citi.  Much of the place was like the wild, wild west, with horrificly bad management.  He had zero tolerance for the nonsense, and was a voice of sanity amid the madness and lack of control during the Chucky Prince era.

While this probably doesn't represent a huge revenue stream, I believe it is very significant that the ECB has chosen Eikon; among other things it suggests reliability, usability and functionality at a high level.

Note that I'm a former TR employee but that's not why I've commented here.

The question of the day; will Thomson Reuters finally learn that its customers don't want a totally new desktop product every 10 years, nor do they want (if they use Thomson Reuters data) to have to buy software?  They need to learn from Bloomberg, which comes out with small, easy to digest updates every month, requiring only very simple rollout procedures.  Thomson Reuters has put its clients through RTW / ATW, Kobra, Kobra / 3000 Xtra, and now Eikon, each requiring massive learning curves, limited functionality at first, and some have required redoing ultra complex spreadsheets and expensive infrastructure updates.

I've been working in IT and related functions since 1979 (and studying it since about 1971).  I was taught some basics about DR and reliability along the way;

1. DR sites should whenever possible be on separate electric grids, not in major danger zones (flood, tornado, earthquake, etc.), have independent power, have enough capacity to carry your business for months, and have systems hot and backed up either continuously or daily from production.

2. DR scenarios should be tested to varying degrees multiple times per year.  Everything should be tested including incoming data, outgoing trade or like systems, web sites, intranet, backup, etc.

3. It's not a bad idea where practical to split production load (think Market Data backbones, for instance) between prime and DR sites as long as either one can handle the full load if need be.  Carefully handled licensing costs might be somewhat higher but then you know that the DR site is fully operational at all times.  It is critical though to have diverse routing from vendor feed sites, something frequently overlooked.

4. A financial firm should have its own network designed to work well even if one or more production locations are lost, and this connectivity should be frequently tested.  Back around 1990, Bankers Trust hubbed its network at 130 Liberty St - across from #1 WTC.  I pointed out at a DR planning meeting that there really needed to be some way to connect if the basement (where the hub was located) got damaged or flooded (I won't repeat the crude words aimed at me for that comment).  But we all know what happened to that building on 9/11 - eleven years later.

I read this morning that the New York Daily News had lost both its offices in lower Manhattan, and its printing plant / DR site in Jersey City.  I think we all understand that this sort of siting is at best, stupid (I think NYDN has now figured that out too).  So banks that have primary in lower Manhattan and backup either at say Metro Tech Brooklyn or in or near Jersey City or some such combo may finally be learning this lesson.

DR has long been a joke at many firms; I'd hoped that 9/11 would teach the needed lesson, but clearly it has not.  Maybe Sandy will - or not.

It's not unusual for banks to have their DR site located fairly close to the other side of the nearest river (East or Hudson).  Office in lower Manhattan near the Hudson, DR in Jersey City, etc.  Moronic, of course, but not uncommon.  And DR testing is frequently not a high priority, though that did improve some after 9/11.  But Sandy, far more then 9/11, should wake up some of the most complacent managers.  One US bank operation of a foreign bank that I know is probably mostly shut down now - its primary site is near WTC, and it's DR is just across the river.