Bloomberg NEXT Launched

Crain's New York Business reported last week that in the market data and financial analysis industry Bloomberg's market share has pulled ahead of Thomson Reuters, but just barely: 30.44% vs. 30.05%. In Bloomberg LP beats Thomson Reuters, Matthew Flamm reports

Bloomberg's move into first place has coincided with troubles at Thomson Reuters, which replaced its CEO at the end of last year following disappointing results for the Eikon market-data desktop product that the company launched in 2010.

Which leads to the topic of this post. Yesterday Bloomberg officially launched Bloomberg NEXT. From the press release:

More than 100,000 clients have already converted to Bloomberg NEXT, a major evolution of the Bloomberg Professional service (the Terminal) that consolidates and integrates its extensive data, news and analytics. The company also kicked off a global campaign to convert all its customers, nearly 310,000 of the world’s leading business and financial professionals, to Bloomberg NEXT by the end of this year.

That's an ambitious short-term adoption objective. But in Bloomberg Launches New Version Of Flagship Financial Service, paidContent's Jeff Roberts reports that over 99% of Bloomberg's 110,000 clients have decided to keep Bloomberg NEXT. Roberts adds

The company is providing Bloomberg Next and related training for free as it seeks to retain the traders and other clients who pay about $20,000 per year for the service... .

Free is always a good thing when it comes to acquiring adoption of a new platform for an established user population. Who knows, it just might increase Bloomberg's market share over Thomson Reuters by way of extended free trials of Bloomberg NEXT to Thomson Reuters' install base. Extended free trials are always a good thing for next-gen today's online information services, particularly when a new product launch produces "disappointing results."

Roberts closes his story with this tidbit from yesterday's Bloomberg NEXT press conference.

[Tom Secunda, one of the company's cofounders] "laughed off a question about whether Apple’s lawyers might bristle at the use of “NEXT” (the same name as a 1980’s Steve Jobs computer company).

Well, Bloomberg isn't a computer manufacturer; it is a online information service provider. Apparently no one at the press conference asked about WestlawNext.

What's next for "next"? Anything? I seem to recall that many years ago Lexis sued Lexus as if the brand name of an automaker would be confused with an online information service provider. If my always faulty memory isn't playing tricks on me, I beleve the court made that point in its ruling. [JH]