> How would you overcome the very large inertial barrier that exists in that world to using something new and untested?
I've already successfully done this. The sales cycle can admittedly be long, but it's not impossible.
You have to create a product that addresses pain points for business users. It has to be a compelling product and it has to solve problems for business decision makers. Initially, you want to sell to the business, not to the IT department. It turns out that spreadsheets are mainly used by business users and subject matter experts, instead of IT.
The next issue is price. If you are trying to sell something for (say) $1 million to a big corporation, then it is quite a a long sales cycle (but still achievable). My personal take on this is you do want to eventually be charging several million dollars per corporate client, but you also should have a low cost "entry level" version of the product. The cost has to be low enough that a business power user could charge it to his Corporate American Express without being noticed (say $1,000) and download and install your application (he will need admin rights, which he might in fact have).
> The world of finance and investment banking is a world of networking and extreme resistance to change.
Yes there is a lot of networking that goes on. This can really work in your favor, because there is a sort of herd mentality. Once people start talking to each other about your product, customers will want to talk to you. If you close a large deal, news will quickly spread and other large deals can follow.
I would not agree that there is "extreme resistance to change." In my experience, banks, hedge funds, etc, are often early adopters and one of the largest users of high technology.
> There's a reason Bloomberg's suite of products sits as pretty as it does
I have Bloomberg in my cross-hairs, next to Excel.
> and unless some great upheaval occurs will continue to do so for many years
You are correct that change often requires a catalyst. But I think that great upheavals are happening everyday, but they are hidden behind closed doors, occurring deep inside of companies and departments. In my experience, it is precisely during those times of upheaval that you have the best chance of introducing a new, disruptive technology into an organization. There are many kinds of upheavals that happen. (mergers, divestitures, running into Excel's maximum row limit, etc) and they can all be catalysts for change.
I've put my email address in profile now, thanks for the tip.