????自上世紀(jì)90年代初以來(lái)，彭博一直主宰著金融通訊市場(chǎng)，其終端成為接入世界金融走廊的主要入口。每臺(tái)彭博終端的年費(fèi)為2萬(wàn)多美元，在安全的即時(shí)通訊領(lǐng)域，彭博終端就是行業(yè)標(biāo)桿，超過(guò)32萬(wàn)客戶通過(guò)它獲取關(guān)鍵信息。

????但是，金融機(jī)構(gòu)受夠了這套系統(tǒng)高得離譜的價(jià)格，而且去年爆出彭博記者窺探終端用戶行為的消息后，許多交易員至今心有余悸。（彭博對(duì)此發(fā)表了道歉聲明，并更新了其編輯部守則，以竭力防止此類事件再次發(fā)生。）

????因此，2014年8月，高盛、美國(guó)銀行、貝萊德、摩根大通等全球最大的14家金融機(jī)構(gòu)集體投資Symphony Communication Services Holdings公司，收購(gòu)名為Perzo的安全即時(shí)通訊服務(wù)，也就不足為奇。上述企業(yè)希望用價(jià)格更低廉但安全性同樣有保障的技術(shù)取代無(wú)處不在的彭博終端。

????在彭博“窺探門”事件中抱怨頗多的高盛，豪擲6600萬(wàn)美元，成為Symphony公司的主要投資者。Perzo（隨后改名為Symphony）于2012年由法國(guó)人大衛(wèi)?格勒（格勒出生于法國(guó)戛納，此前曾就職于微軟、湯森路透以及Skype等公司）創(chuàng)建，可能很快推出替代彭博高價(jià)通訊工具的專有產(chǎn)品。Perzo的優(yōu)勢(shì)之一在于，該產(chǎn)品使企業(yè)能控制其員工如何通訊、與誰(shuí)通訊，對(duì)于那些希望遵守監(jiān)管制度的企業(yè)而言，這一功能極具吸引力。（彭博拒絕對(duì)此發(fā)表評(píng)論。）

????格勒本身是個(gè)很有意思的人。他不僅曾在好幾家大公司就職，還持有飛行許可證，偶爾執(zhí)行醫(yī)療飛行任務(wù)，將移植器官和緊急病患開飛機(jī)送到醫(yī)院。2000年與比爾?蓋茨會(huì)面時(shí)，格勒力推統(tǒng)一通信服務(wù)的創(chuàng)意，即將通訊、語(yǔ)音和應(yīng)用程序共享融合在一起。這次會(huì)面很順利。格勒表示：“在產(chǎn)品評(píng)論會(huì)中，比爾經(jīng)常會(huì)說(shuō)‘這是我聽過(guò)的最愚蠢的想法’，他沒(méi)對(duì)我說(shuō)這句話，所以結(jié)果算是很好了。”

????Symphony可視為上述創(chuàng)意的浴火重生。當(dāng)時(shí)，微軟該項(xiàng)目被命名為“鳳凰計(jì)劃”，后演變?yōu)槲④汱ync企業(yè)通信系統(tǒng)。2003年，格勒離開微軟，加入湯森路透領(lǐng)導(dǎo)其協(xié)作服務(wù)團(tuán)隊(duì)，這是他首次進(jìn)入金融領(lǐng)域。七年后，格勒加入Skype，領(lǐng)導(dǎo)該公司企業(yè)業(yè)務(wù)部門。一年后，格勒的前雇主微軟收購(gòu)了Skype，就這樣，格勒兜兜轉(zhuǎn)轉(zhuǎn)又回到了微軟旗下。（微軟最近宣布，微軟Lync明年將改名為商用版Skype）現(xiàn)在，格勒再度轉(zhuǎn)身，重返華爾街。

????風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資公司Merus Capital合伙人薩爾曼?烏拉20年前曾與格勒在微軟Lync項(xiàng)目上共事，后來(lái)成為Perzo最早期的資助者之一。烏拉相信，該服務(wù)“有望成為企業(yè)級(jí)市場(chǎng)的WhatsApp”。去年，烏拉所在的Merus Capital公司在種子期向Symphony投資了20萬(wàn)美元。今年早些時(shí)候，Merus Capital加碼，又注入了350萬(wàn)美元投資。

????烏拉表示：“人人都猜測(cè)Symphony可能成為彭博終結(jié)者，但我們之前甚至都不知道彭博終端是什么。我們之前嚴(yán)重與世界脫節(jié)。”現(xiàn)在，烏拉比較熟悉彭博終端了。他這樣描述自己第一次看到彭博終端界面時(shí)的震驚：“我簡(jiǎn)直不敢相信，我還以為他們是跟我開玩笑。”烏拉將其比作使用上世紀(jì)50年代的過(guò)時(shí)編程語(yǔ)言Cobal進(jìn)行編程。他說(shuō)道：“這像是老掉牙的東西。”確實(shí)，自20世紀(jì)80年代以來(lái)，彭博系統(tǒng)的硬件或軟件界面鮮有更新，這招致了一些批評(píng)，甚至促使設(shè)計(jì)公司IDEO于2007年在Condé Nast Portfolio雜志上暢想了如何重新設(shè)計(jì)彭博系統(tǒng)的用戶體驗(yàn)。

????就格勒而言，他的志向不光是打敗彭博。格勒計(jì)劃在今年夏天發(fā)布完整版本，他希望自己這款一體化完全兼容的端對(duì)端加密通訊工具能橫掃目前支離破碎的加密通訊市場(chǎng)，取代市場(chǎng)上現(xiàn)有的彭博聊天工具、湯森路透Eikon、美國(guó)在線Instant Messenger、雅虎聊天工具、Gchat等多款產(chǎn)品。格勒希望，其產(chǎn)品在消費(fèi)者中同在企業(yè)級(jí)市場(chǎng)上一樣大受歡迎。

????與封閉的彭博系統(tǒng)不同的是，作為Symphony首席執(zhí)行官，格勒計(jì)劃將該服務(wù)開源，以便人們?cè)诖嘶A(chǔ)上構(gòu)建內(nèi)容和新聞內(nèi)容等功能。格勒還打算在Symphony中嵌入自動(dòng)化個(gè)人助理等有用的情境智能。格勒表示，該服務(wù)可能對(duì)三個(gè)等級(jí)的付費(fèi)用戶免費(fèi)，他提到了訪問(wèn)公司通訊簿、無(wú)限存儲(chǔ)、合規(guī)以及網(wǎng)絡(luò)冗余等附加軟件。就付款等級(jí)定價(jià)而言，格勒預(yù)計(jì)：專業(yè)級(jí)定價(jià)低于每月10美元；企業(yè)級(jí)介于每月15美元至20美元之間；企業(yè)增強(qiáng)級(jí)低于每月30美元。

????格勒聲稱：“我說(shuō)句大膽的話。如果我們最終迫使你使用兩種不同的通訊工具——姑且稱之為收件箱——那是我們的失敗。因?yàn)槟菢拥脑挘覀兾茨芎?jiǎn)化你的生活，反而使其變得更加復(fù)雜。”

????雖然上述說(shuō)法還有待證實(shí)，但各大企業(yè)已經(jīng)對(duì)Symphony頗有信心。時(shí)任高盛首要戰(zhàn)略投資部門負(fù)責(zé)人的達(dá)倫?科恩曾幫助促成合并，并一直推動(dòng)各家企業(yè)投資Symphony。如今，高盛在一眾企業(yè)中率先采用Symphony，并已將自身此前的通訊工具Live Current（該產(chǎn)品使雇員能輕松抓取并分享推特消息，而推特上往往有新聞）并入Symphony。盡管科恩未能對(duì)本文置評(píng)，但很可能他及其上級(jí)對(duì)該交易很滿意；科恩隨后晉級(jí)為合伙人。更重要的問(wèn)題是，Symphony能否順利晉級(jí)——從一家雄心勃勃的初創(chuàng)企業(yè)變身金融業(yè)新標(biāo)桿。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：Hunter

????審校: 夏林

????Since the early ‘90s, Bloomberg has dominated the financial communications market, its terminals serving as key entry points into the world’s financial corridors. Costing more than $20,000 a piece per year and connecting more than 320,000 clients with critical information, Bloomberg’s terminals are the industry standard when it comes to secure, instant messaging.

????Still, financial firms are tired of the terminal’s exorbitant price tag, and many traders are still wary after Bloomberg reporters were caught snooping the activity of terminal users last year. (Bloomberg issued an apology and updated its newsroom rules in an effort to prevent such an incident from reoccurring.)

????It’s not surprising, then, why 14 of the world’s biggest financial firms—including Goldman Sachs , Bank of America , BlackRock, J.P Morgan Chase , and others—bought a secure instant messaging service called Perzo in August 2014 through a venture called Symphony Communication Services Holdings. They want a cheaper, yet equally secure, technology to replace Bloomberg’s ubiquitous terminals.

????Goldman Sachs, one of the most vocal gripers in the Bloomberg affair, shelled out $66 million to became the principal investor in Symphony. Founded in 2012 by Frenchman David Gurle (who hails from Cannes and previously worked at Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, and Skype), Perzo—since renamed Symphony—may soon offer a proprietary alternative to Bloomberg’s premium messaging tool. One advantage: the product grants enterprises control over how and with whom their employees chat, an appealing feature for those looking to comply with regulatory Chinese walls. (Bloomberg declined to comment.)

????Gurle is an interesting figure himself. Not only does he have a background at several big-name companies, he’s also a licensed pilot who occasionally flies medical missions to transport organs and patients from airfield to hospital. He initially pitched the idea for a unified communications service—one that bundles messaging, voice and application sharing—at a meeting with Bill Gates in 2000. It went well. “If you’re in a product review with Bill, you’ll hear him say, ‘This is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,’” Gurle says. “I didn’t hear that comment, so it was a very positive outcome.”

????Symphony can be considered a rebirth of that initial pitch. “Project Phoenix,” as the Microsoft endeavor was dubbed, evolved into Microsoft Lync, a business communications system. After leaving the software giant in 2003 to lead collaborative services at Thomson Reuters for seven years—Gurle’s first foray into the financial world—he joined Skype, where he headed the company’s enterprise business division. A year later, Gurle’s former employer Microsoft purchased Skype, bringing his career full circle. (The company recently announced that Microsoft Lync will be renamed Skype for Business next year.) Now Gurle has turned another revolution, returning to Wall Street.

????Salman Ullah, a partner at the venture firm Merus Capital who two decades ago worked with Gurle on Microsoft Lync and later became one of Perzo’s earliest funders, believes the service “has the potential to be the WhatsApp for business,” as he put it. Last year, his firm invested $200,000 in Symphony’s seed round. Earlier this year, the firm upped its contribution, injecting an additional $3.5 million.

????“Everybody has speculated about how Symphony could be a Bloomberg killer,” Ullah says. “We didn’t even know what it was. We were so decoupled from that world.” Now Ullah is more familiar. He describes his shock at first seeing the interface of the Bloomberg terminal: “I couldn’t believe it. I thought they were pulling my leg,” Ullah says. He compares the experience to coding in the démodé programming language Cobal from the ‘50s. “It’s like clay tablet era,” he says. Indeed, the Bloomberg system has seen few updates to its hardware or software interfaces since in the 1980s, a fact that’s illicit some criticism and even prompted user-interface IDEO to imagine a possible UX redesign for Condé Nast Portfolio magazine in 2007.

????For Gurle’s part, his ambition exceeds unseating Bloomberg. With plans for a full release by this summer, he would like his end-to-end encrypted messaging tool to sweep the currently fragmented landscape (cluttered with Bloomberg chat, Thomson Reuters Eikon, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo chat, Gchat, etc.) with an all-in-one, fully compliant alternative. He hopes it will be just as popular with consumers as businesses.

????As CEO of Symphony, Gurle plans to make the service open source, so people can build features, like content and news elements, on top, unlike the closed Bloomberg system. He also aims to embed helpful contextual intelligence in Symphony, such as an automated personal assistant. The service will likely be free with three paid tiers, he says, mentioning add-ons like access to corporate directories, unlimited storage, regulatory compliance, and network redundancies. In terms of the paid tier pricing, he expects: Professional (less than $10 per month), Enterprise (between $15 and $20 per month), and Enterprise Plus (less than $30 per month).

????“I’m going to make a very bold statement,” Gurle declares. “If we end up forcing you to use two different communication tools—inboxes, let’s call it, for lack of a better term—then we have failed,” he says. “Then we will not have simplified your life, we will have made it more complicated.”

????While that statement has yet to be proven, major enterprises are already putting a lot of faith in Symphony. Darren Cohen, then head of principal strategic investments at Goldman Sachs and who helped spark the merger tête-à-têtes, has been a firebrand within the consortium of investing companies. Goldman Sachs now leads the pack in adopting Symphony, and the company has already folded its former tool—Live Current, which allows employees to easily grab and share tweets (where news often breaks)—into Symphony. Though Cohen was unable to provide comment for the story, odds are good that he and his superiors are pleased with the deal; he has since been promoted to partner. The bigger question is whether Symphony will see a promotion of its own from ambitious startup to the new gold standard of the financial industry.