Since Thomson Reuters announced the withdrawal of its market share reporter, the phones have been ringing red hot with enquiries asking if we could build a replacement using our existing free-to-view Frag website. This prompted a fierce debate here at Fidessa Towers as to whether we should commercialise this opportunity and, if so, what new features we would need to add and how we should charge for them. Personally, I always thought that one of the most powerful things about our site is that it is curated by the folks that use it. This only happens when it’s free, as the users then feel a real sense of ownership and intellectual investment. Anyway, we went back and forth on this and, fortunately, good sense won out over corporate commercialism.

So the good news is that we will be extending the current site to include a host of new features – the ability to view and download market share by centre (e.g. London or Paris) and by region (e.g. Europe or North America), for example. Even better news is that we will continue to provide it for free. A new version will be available in time for Christmas and then, based upon your feedback, we will add further functionality in the New Year.

By taking this incremental, community-based approach we should be building the right stuff and avoiding the internal debate that so often stalls product development in our industry.

So please do email the team with your suggestions and, as always, thanks for your continued support.