Reuters has begun migrating users of legacy products including Reuters DataScope Portfolio and Reuters Global Pricing Service on to Reuters DataScope Select, the web-based data delivery service it launched in January (Reference Data Review, January 2006). Reuters’ rationale for the move is to avoid retaining multiple platforms, and to enable its clients to take advantage of the additional functionality and flexibility available in DataScope Select. After they migrate, clients will also benefit from the “pay as you go” pricing model Reuters employs for the new platform, which one user describes as more “Bloomberg-like”, and which should enable them to avoid charges for data they don’t actually need. While the migration is obligatory, Reuters insists there is no time pressure for clients to complete the process.
Michele Kelsey, senior vice president and product business owner, DataScope Pricing & Reference, says DataScope Select “is a logical and complete replacement for DataScope Portfolio” because it was conceived to comprise the best elements of Reuters’ existing reference data delivery platforms, and because as a hosted platform the need for a “laborious installation” is avoided. “Reuters ensures that DataScope Select offers the broadest range of capabilities to our customers,” she says. “We have been able to migrate customers from the DataScope Portfolio platform to the new more robust DataScope Select platform with ease.”
Kelsey emphasises the value of DataScope Select’s cross-asset class coverage. “It has the ability to include not only equities but fixed income, FX and money markets on one platform,” she says. “This gives clients the ability to set up a template once, unless they need to adapt it, which they can easily do. Equities, fixed income and all other instruments are included in one template. Therefore if the client has a portfolio to download, they do not need separate templates for each instrument.”
When mandating a migration from delivery mechanism to another, the onus is on data vendors to help their clients avoid the change “falling through the cracks”, in order to ensure they set aside both the time and the budget to effect the upgrade on schedule. Kelsey says Reuters has been “managing the transition programme carefully”. The process has been under way for a couple of months, she says, and Reuters is actively working with its clients to help them initiate parallel runs, and then migrate over. The programme is happening at “more or less” the same time in different geographies, though Reuters is “taking slightly different approaches depending on regional requirements”.
The length of the migration project varies client by client, she says. “It is difficult to say when the process will be complete, because it depends on our clients’ needs through the transition process,” Kelsey adds.
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