Hard on the heels of last week’s news that FactSet is partnering with AWS for cloud-hosted market data provision, Refinitiv has announced a new strategic relationship with Microsoft that features new products and services based on the Microsoft Azure cloud capability.
The development is the latest of a series of moves into cloud-based hosting and delivery by major financial information providers that has also seen SIX strike a strategic relationship with cloud data specialist Xignite, itself an AWS partner. A-Team is hosting a webinar on November 3 to discuss the practicalities of dealing with cloud-hosted data as part of a hybrid approach to data delivery (we’ll be posting details soon but you can sign up now here, it’s free).
Refinitiv says its deal with Microsoft “will give people who work in the financial sector greater connectivity and insight into their markets and customers, and help them make critical business decisions.” As well as launching new services on Microsoft Azure, Refinitiv will be expanding its use of Microsoft 365 and Teams to facilitate greater connectivity and collaboration with customers.
The arrangement builds on two prior Refinitiv initiatives with Azure. In 2018, Refinitiv launched QA Direct in the Cloud, an analysis service aimed at investment managers that draws extensively on Refinitiv’s market and reference data. The service is based on Refinitiv’s QA suite of analytical products, originally launched through the purchase in 2006 of Quantitative Analytics Inc. by Thomson Financial prior to Thomson Corp.’s 2007 acquisition of Reuters to form Thomson Reuters, the precursor to Refinitiv.
More recently – in March – Refinitiv made a strategic investment in ModuleQ, a Microsoft partner for Office 365 and Microsoft Teams. ModuleQ has an intelligent app that predicts users’ current priorities while working in Microsoft Teams to bring them timely and relevant content, news and analytics. The Refinitiv and ModuleQ partnership is aimed at proactively adding relevant information directly into clients’ workflows.
Refinitiv had been collaborating with ModuleQ since 2018, using machine learning and analytics to offer proactive insights tailored to users’ current work priorities via the ModuleQ app by leveraging Refinitiv Intelligent Tagging and Refinitiv Knowledge Graph capabilities. Through the latest collaboration, the companies plan to continue to integrate select Refinitiv content, including Aftermarket Research and Company Profiles, to help ModuleQ app users extract insights as their priorities change.
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