Bloomberg's terminal business generate 75% of the company's revenues. These revenues are under attack from startups such as Symphony and Money.net. Wall Street is eager to cut costs and eliminating the pricey Bloomberg contracts, which can be upward of $100m, would be a huge help.
For nearly three decades, the flickering orange-on-black screens of the Bloomberg terminal have been omnipresent on Wall Street trading floors and executive suite desks, maintaining a vital lifeline of data and communication. In knitting together the world of finance, those $21,000-a-year terminals have generated billions of dollars for Bloomberg L.P., almost single-handedly paying for the company’s journalistic ambitions, as well as the fortune, political career and philanthropic largess of its founder, Michael R. Bloomberg. Now that golden egg — and all that it pays for — is a target for new competitors looking to knock it from its dominant position. Bloomberg has fended off competition before, but the latest upstarts are gunning for the company at a time when Wall Street is already aggressively looking to cut its spending on Bloomberg terminals.
