Bloomberg runs on 25 million lines of Fortran...<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;etrading.wordpress.com&#x2F;2006&#x2F;06&#x2F;01&#x2F;25-million-lines-of-fortran&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;etrading.wordpress.com&#x2F;2006&#x2F;06&#x2F;01&#x2F;25-million-lines-o...</a><p>The NY Times is right to point out that it&#x27;s the range of offerings in Bloomberg that make it so hard to dislodge: news, dealer quotes, market data, reference data, historical data, email &amp; chat, charting etc. There are many firms tackling parts of that puzzle, but nobody attempting to do it all. Bloomberg is a classic platform business; with such strong demand from one constituency - traders renting terminals - that it can afford to treat other platform clients with disdain. When I worked for a dealer contributing quotes to BBG I found them incredibly difficult to work with.