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商業 湯姆森路透 熒屏上的考驗
The information company, in danger of losing its top spot, gets a new boss
為了防止失去榜首，新上司上位。
IN SEVEN years as head of Reuters, Tom Glocer brought the British-based news agency from the verge of bankruptcy to a state of rude health.
湯姆?葛洛瑟在路透社高層工作了7年。在這7年間，他把路透社，這家總部設在英國瀕臨破產的新聞社重新走上了正軌。
But he has done less well as chief executive of Thomson Reuters, the company created when Thomson, a Canadian purveyor of professional information for lawyers, accountants and others, bought Reuters in 2008.
湯姆森是加拿大一家為律師，會計等提供信息服務的公司,在2008年收購了路透社。湯姆森路透信息公司也隨之成立。然而在收購之后，公司首席執行官湯姆?葛洛瑟的表現卻不甚理想。
Bloomberg, the firm's American rival, has almost wiped out its once-clear lead (see chart).
彭博，路透在北美的競爭對手，縮小與路透社曾經的巨大差距，現已與路透的市場份額非常接近。（見圖表）
On December 1st Mr Glocer said he would step down at the end of the year. His replacement, James Smith, the chief operating officer, is a former Thomson man.
葛洛瑟說他會在今年年底辭職。他的繼任者詹姆?史密斯，新的首席執行官，曾經也是湯姆森的員工。
The revenues of the professional division of Thomson Reuters grew by 10% in the year to the third quarter, but those of the markets division—which provides financial data and services, and accounts for more than half of total sales—managed only 1%.
湯姆森路透其專業部（1）今年三季度收入增長率為10%。市場部負責提供金融數據服務，占據公司總銷售額超過一半，然而其增長率僅為1%。
Last year that division launched a new information platform, Eikon, to compete with the terminals offered by Bloomberg, but just 8,000 customers have taken it up.
去年，市場部發布了一個新的信息平臺Eikon，以此與彭博的終端產品競爭，可是使用平臺顧客只有8，000人。
The company has 400,000 financial-data subscribers in all.
公司金融數據訂購者的人數為400，000。
Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg are the big fish in the professional-publishing pond, at least eight times larger than their nearest competitor.
湯姆?葛洛瑟和彭博都是專業出版界的巨頭。即使是最接近的同類競爭者，湯姆?葛洛瑟和彭博的規模至少也是他們的八倍多。
Bloomberg, besides expanding its terminals business, which has over 300,000 customers (at about $20,000 a pop), is pushing into government-related news and data.
彭博的顧客數量為300，000，除了繼續擴展他的終端業務，彭博也正在進軍與政府相關的新聞和數據。
In 2010 it launched Bloomberg Government, which competes with Congressional Quarterly, a sister company of The Economist.
2010年，彭博發布了"彭博 政府"。它的競爭對手將是經濟學人的兄弟企業"國會季刊"。
In September it made its biggest purchase ever, spending $990m on BNA, a legal- and tax-information firm.
在九月，彭博將花費9.9億美元完成它最大一次的收購，被收購的公司是BNA，一家有關法律稅收的企業。
So what happened to Mr Glocer's winning streak?
那么葛洛瑟如何延續他的連勝態勢？
His allies say his departure was always just a matter of time: once a firm buys another, it completes the takeover by putting its own people in charge.
其助手認為他的離開只是個時間問題：一旦企業收購一家公司，企業就會讓自己的人員來取代之前的公司員工。
The Thomson family still owns 55% of the company, and some think the generous price Mr Glocer secured from Thomson for Reuters made him all the more vulnerable.
湯姆森家族一共擁有路透的55%。與此同時，葛洛瑟從湯姆森那里獲得慷慨的報價，一些人還認為這也會使他備受詬病。
But he might have stayed longer were it not for a mix of bad luck and overconfidence.
葛洛瑟也可以選擇繼續高職就位。然而如果是這樣，這對自命不凡的葛洛瑟來說，厄運也就將至。
Eikon, intended to replace Reuters' grab bag of services with a single offering, was designed to be more user-friendly than Bloomberg's devices,
Eikon，意在取代提公司唯一的綜合服務供商—路透社，原計劃設計成比彭博更加用戶友好的平臺。
but it was launched hastily and with flaws.
但是Eikon發布倉促，平臺也有一定的缺點。
With hindsight, a more gradual upgrade might have been more prudent.
不過有事后之名，因而選擇逐漸升級Eikon會比較穩妥。
This summer, under pressure from the Thomson family, Mr Glocer fired Devin Wenig, a close ally he had put in charge of creating Eikon, and took it over himself—tying his prospects even more closely to Eikon's.
今年夏天，葛洛瑟在湯姆森家族的壓力下，解雇了他之前任命的負責創始Eikon的德溫?維尼希。德溫?維尼希也是葛洛瑟的一位心腹。葛洛瑟將親自運營Eikon，把自己的未來前途和Eikon結合的更緊密。
Perhaps Mr Smith can do better.
也許史密斯會做的更好。
He will almost certainly have a freer hand, and some upgrades to Eikon are planned for next year.
他肯定會給讓路透擁有更大自由空間。他也著手對于Eikon明年進行升級。
But these are still stormy seas.
然而排在他面前的仍有許多困難。
According to Claudio Aspesi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, an investment bank, it took most professional-publishing firms three to four years to recover from the 2001 recession.
克勞迪奧-埃斯皮西 ，投資銀行Sanford C. Bernstein的一個分析師，說在2001年出版業蕭條期間，Sanford C. Bernstein挽救了許多出版業企業。
This time, Bernstein predicts, revenue growth at Thomson Reuters will not reach pre-crash levels until at least 2015.
這次，Bernstein預測，湯姆森路透的收入增長直至2015年才能保有防沖擊水平。
One area of potential growth, though, is trading services.
交易服務是潛在的增長點。
Changes in financial regulation in America and Europe will force a lot of trading in derivatives from the murky world of private "over-the-counter" deals onto exchanges, where contracts will be standardised and prices quoted.
在美國和歐洲的金融法令的變化也使得金融衍生品的交易從"單方面"的銷售擴展成互相交易。
This presents both Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg with an opportunity to gather and sell data on these markets and perhaps to capture a share of the trade by linking banks and their clients through their own electronic trading platforms.
在這些法令下，合同交更加規范并且要引證報價。這也給湯姆森路透和彭博機會來收集市場上的數據并進行銷售。之后他們也有可能通過自身的電子商務平臺連接銀行與客戶，從而在交易中占有一定份額。
The market for these derivatives is gigantic.
金融衍生品的市場無疑是巨大的。
A competitive edge there could make a big difference to both companies' fortunes.
對于兩家公司來說，擁有競爭優勢會讓他們公司的財富狀況截然不同。
