How the Bloomberg Terminal Made History and Stays Relevant • Hacker News Board

Re: How the Bloomberg Terminal Made History and Stays Relevant

#21

Post by jasode » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 6:45 PM UTC

raldi wrote: post #5

One of the most interesting things about the Bloomberg terminal that never seems to get mentioned in all the coverage and commenting is that its UI is optimized for users who actually take the time to go through training. In particular, everything is designed so that you never have to touch the mouse. If there are 20 choices onscreen, they'll all be numbered, and you type the number of the choice you want and press e…

> its UI is optimized for users who actually take the time to go through training.

I read another take on Bloomberg terminal's dominance.

A (potential) competitor might look at the Bloomberg screens and think they could recreate that more cheaply with Angular, React.js, or some fancy GPU accelerated DirectX. Maybe they'll have interesting ideas like beaming price charts to Google Glass, Apple Watch, etc.

However, that's just looking at the surface level.

The thing that's very hard to duplicate is the relationships that Bloomberg has built up over the years with all the data providers to get you ultra low latency data feeds. That's hundreds of golf games and 3 martini lunches the competitor would have to duplicate to establish the relationships Bloomberg has. The programming of the hardware and GUI would be trivial compared to the wheeling & dealing that has to be done.

Re: How the Bloomberg Terminal Made History and Stays Relevant

#22

Post by yeureka » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 6:51 PM UTC

As someone who recently joined the firm to develop software for the terminal I find it heartwarming that it is so well regarded in the HN community. I did struggle a lot with the UI initially though I hear that most of users are hardcore about keeping it as it is.

Re: How the Bloomberg Terminal Made History and Stays Relevant

#23

Post by apaprocki » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 6:55 PM UTC

akshayn wrote: post #20

apaprocki wrote: post #7

There are some of us HNers that develop the Terminal software/infrastructure (or used to)... so if there's ever anything you were dying to ask, AMAA. :)

I imagine the data sources are proprietary; i.e. I as a layperson could not call some API to find the exact location of every ship in the world. So I imagine Bloomberg must negotiate for access to this data, and that's what I'm really paying for? The actual terminal application is secondary.

It's not really as simple as that. Just because you have data doesn't mean you have (sometimes dizzyingly complex) analytic tools to make sense of the data. An API and Excel plugin exist for people who want to do things themselves, but the Terminal app is definitely not secondary for the vast majority. You're paying for service, which includes everything as well as continued enhancement, new features and data sources, and 24/7 technical and analytic support.

Re: How the Bloomberg Terminal Made History and Stays Relevant

#24

Post by gclaramunt » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 7:09 PM UTC

lujim wrote: post #16

chollida1 wrote: post #4

The Bloomberg terminal is awesome! By now its been iterated to a point where it's like the Microsoft Office of Finance. It does everything and there is no way for one person to understand everything it can do. It also has the nice lock in feature of the 20% of features that each person needs is different. This is probably the biggest reason why no one is yet encroaching on their territory. it you trade debt, it has y…

It better be awesome for $24,000 per year per terminal (last I checked) ;)

that's peanuts compared to the cost of NOT having the terminal

Re: How the Bloomberg Terminal Made History and Stays Relevant

#25

Post by bane » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 7:17 PM UTC

Outside of Wall Street, or rather non-U.S. financial industries, do they also use Bloomberg Terminals for their markets or do they use something home grown or nothing at all?

What's the value advantage that a network like this gives to the U.S. vs. other places?

Re: How the Bloomberg Terminal Made History and Stays Relevant

#26

Post by apaprocki » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 7:47 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #25

Outside of Wall Street, or rather non-U.S. financial industries, do they also use Bloomberg Terminals for their markets or do they use something home grown or nothing at all? What's the value advantage that a network like this gives to the U.S. vs. other places?

The Terminal is used around the world and is localized into 11 languages. News content is provided in something like 40+ languages.

edit: Also very important is native speaker tech/analytic support in all major customer languages.

Re: How the Bloomberg Terminal Made History and Stays Relevant

#27

Post by lujim » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 8:13 PM UTC

gclaramunt wrote: post #24

lujim wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It better be awesome for $24,000 per year per terminal (last I checked) ;)

that's peanuts compared to the cost of NOT having the terminal

True, but it's 24k a year because it's the industry standard in the same way a TI-84 is 100 bucks in 2015.

Re: How the Bloomberg Terminal Made History and Stays Relevant

#28

Post by whatok » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 9:02 PM UTC

bombtrack wrote: post #19

FiveThirtyEight's "What's the Point" podcast recently had an episode mostly devoted to the Bloomberg Terminal. I found it fascinating. I would have never known it had its own sections/apps/services for travel booking, classified ads, chat, etc. It would be so fun to poke around at one in real life. http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/podcast-wall-streets-just... - Bloomberg Terminal discussion starts around 5:30.

If you're in New York, I'm pretty sure the library has a few terminals.