Thomson Reuters has halted sales of its 3000 Xtra premium desktop service to new clients, in a move seen as a vote of confidence in successor desktop product Eikon. As of July 31, Thomson Reuters’ sales teams will offer new clients Eikon as the sole choice of premium desktop, although existing 3000 Xtra clients will be able to add to their existing subscriptions.
The decision to withdraw 3000 Xtra in favour of Eikon reflects management thinking that Eikon is now ready for prime-time. The system – heralded as Thomson Reuters’ next-generation desktop – has had a difficult start since it was launched two years ago, as evidenced by the continued sale of 3000 Xtra as a premium desktop option.
According to Peter Moss, managing director of the new Trading group at Thomson Reuters Financial & Risk, the decision to halt sales of 3000 Xtra wasn’t a sudden one. “We’ve been working over the past six to 18 months to build the momentum behind Eikon,” he says. “We felt we had got to the point where the balance tipped and we could focus on Eikon solely in the premium desktop space.”
Moss describes instances of ‘client pull’ where customers have requested migration of their entire stock of 3000 Xtras or other providers’ premium desktops to Eikon. In a memo to sales teams last week, Moss and Investors group head Neil Masterson said: “We’re delighted that customers now see Thomson Reuters Eikon as a compelling desktop platform with rich functionality and data coverage.”
Moss and Masterson went on to point out that “since the start of 2012, 89% of desktop sales to new clients were for Eikon, vs 11% for Reuters 3000 Xtra.”
In their memo, the two said “to reflect this shift and actively support efforts to upgrade customers to Eikon as soon as possible, Reuters 3000 Xtra will be withdrawn from sale to new customers as of July 31, 2012. It will still be available to existing customers.”
The memo says “existing Reuters 3000 Xtra users can continue to use the service and add users. Support will continue to be available for existing users of Reuters 3000 Xtra.”
Indeed, Moss says it’s too early to talk about an obsolescence plan for 3000 Xtra. “There is still a sizable population out there,” he says. “We are talking to everybody about Eikon, but people don’t have to roll over; they can move at their own pace. This won’t be a forced push.”
Elsewhere in its desktop product lineup, Thomson Reuters “will continue to offer Datastream Pro and Thomson ONE where they are currently the best options,” according to the memo. Moss sees applicability of these services primarily within the investment management, investment banking and wealth management segments, particularly in the US.
For those firms implementing Eikon alongside 3000 Xtra, Moss says, there are similar delivery and connectivity options. The Eikon desktop has been “thinned out” somewhat, he says, by moving certain elements of functionality upstream to Thomson Reuters’ data centres. Eikon users can opt to receive real-time data via the Internet or a terminal concentrator (a similar piece of kit to the 3000 Xtra controller), or they can opt to run Eikon as a desktop of their Thomson Reuters Enterprise Platform (the former Reuters Market Data System [RMDS]).
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