Source: Reuters
Reuters (LSE:RTR, Nasdaq:RTRSY), the global information company, today announced a new 'Developers Partner Program for Application Providers' that formalizes a program to deepen both technical and marketing support, while dramatically reducing the cost of obtaining, developing and integrating Reuters data and Market Data Platforms for application developers.
As part of this announcement, Reuters is also committing support for legacy APIs used for the TIB and Triarch Market Data Platforms, to include Triarch SSL, TIB and TIBCO Rendezvous 5 APIs.
The Developers Program will benefit a community that today stands at over 270 application providers who have built programs around Reuters open data feeds and platforms such as RMDS (Reuters Market Data Solutions). With such a large and growing group of providers, the program is designed to take advantage of economies of scale that can be unleashed back to this community, which in turn can bring more innovation and solutions to Reuters customers.
"More and more, the Reuters Market Data Platform is being used as a ticker plant to feed real-time algorithmic trading applications," said Marie Giangrande, VP Marketing Reuters. "To be a serious player in this space, application providers must be able to handle update rates that are doubling every year and to handle latency rates in the millisecond and sub-millisecond range. By providing more tools, access to test systems and on-line support, the Developer Partner Program will assist third parties to build higher quality applications while helping to promote their solutions into our customer base," Giangrande added.
The developer program facilitates enablement, regular communication and co-marketing of products and services. Application Developers are offered low-cost access to Reuters APIs and other resources including testing systems, sample code, technical documentation, and email support for technical incidents. The full package of benefits includes:
RDC Professional package: Discounted APIs & online support Discounted RMDS test systems Reuters Web Portal (Customer Zone) for online access to software, support & information Invitations to Developer Conferences and other events Listing in Reuters Application Directory Reuters endorsements & press release templates Package of benefits from Reuters technology platform partners
"Developers have told us that this program will reduce the cost of developing to Reuters services and improve the time-to-market for delivering value to our mutual customers," Said Paul Geraghty, Product Manager, Development Programs for Reuters.
New API Commercial Model
With a range of Reuters interfaces for different programming needs, developers need access to a variety of Reuter interfaces at different times. The new developer commercial model for APIs responds to this requirement.
The new API commercial model applies to both customer and partner developers. Previously an application developer paid for each Reuters API as they required it for a new project; a separate support fee was charged through the Reuters Developer Connect support service.
In order to put the full portfolio of Reuter APIs in the hands of application developers, Reuters is effectively making all of our latest APIs available for free as part of the Reuters Developer Connect support service. The Program will enable the APIs to be accessible by all developers in a firm.
"The new commercials mean that customers and developers can get the tools they need easily to build in-house skills and ensure the most appropriate API is used to meet the business requirements," said Jack Gidding, Business and Product Manager of API Products at Reuters.
Reuters Developer Conferences
Reuters will be inviting customer and Partner developers to conferences in London and New York in October. These1-day conferences will provide a detailed overview of Reuters latest APIs as well as technical educational sessions. The conferences are in New York City October 14th, and in London October 28th. Interested application providers can email developer.program@reuters.com for more information.
CodeStreet LLC ReplayService for RMDS
In a related development, Reuters today also announced a worldwide resale agreement with application provider, CodeStreet LLC, to offer CodeStreet's ReplayService for the Reuters Market Data System (RMDS). This software application will be an optional extension of the RMDS system for developers and application designers. It allows developers to more fully and easily stress test and regression test their applications with recorded market data.
Continued Support for Older APIs
As stated earlier, Reuters is committing continued support of Triarch SSL, TIB and TIBCO Rendezvous 5 APIs. Earlier in the year with the announcement of the new RDN data model, Reuters indicated that these older APIs would become obsolete. That would have necessitated that customers re-write the applications to newer RFA (Reuters Foundation API).
The announcement today eliminates any need to re-write applications in the foreseeable future. Reuters will not sell these APIs for new applications and will not enhance these legacy APIs except to keep pace with the latest operating systems and compilers. However, sites that already have these APIs could purchase more if they require.
Customers can move forward their older applications to RMDS and choose to adopt the new RFA API when they have a business need.
"Some applications will need to take advantage of the new RFA API with its features of multi-threading and multiple data types. However, for many applications built over the last decade, leaving them to run without incurring the cost of an API upgrade is in our customers' and application providers' best interest," said Jack Gidding, Business and Product Manager, API Products.
Reuters customers to date have deployed approximately 50,000 applications. The vast majority of applications built use the older APIs. Reuters invested heavily to ensure backward compatibility of these applications from Triarch and TIB to the new RMDS platform. Today, the majority of applications can run on RMDS without any modification.