Eikon

The problems with Eikon look like an all-too familiar story - the failure of Armstrong, which Barry Simpson and I chronicled in Breaking News. A controversial view, perhaps, but I increasingly see Reuters financial services as an “accidental” business. The company struck gold with the genius of Monitor and the FX markets and then tapped the same vein with Dealing, but, despite valiant efforts and huge investment, it never managed to replicate that success with another product. Bloomberg in particular (and others) proved to be more savvy; they came up with products which the market wanted, and which worked. ■