Change for the Good

Welcome to the new Waters. Several subscribers have asked me about our plans to incorporate Buy-Side Technology and Dealing with Technology into Waters, and I am happy to report that everyone has been receptive to the idea. Even those who are unsure what to make of the transition say it is a logical step in the right direction. 

This is not a case of losing. Rather, Waters gains BST and DWT—which will be re-branded as Sell-Side Technology to more accurately reflect its editorial remit. All your familiar content is still available, but this move reflects changes in the publishing industry, where, for example, more members of our community are leaning toward consuming their content in digital format. This means that we have chosen to publish one large monthly, glossy business and trading technology publication instead of two small monthlies and an equally modest weekly publication, which we believe is no longer necessary.    

The upside of this change, from your perspective, is that you will get a more comprehensive, monthly publication covering all aspects of financial IT, rather than content about only the buy side or only the sell side. This reflects the incremental shift that has been taking place in our industry for a number of years now—a convergence in terms of the business models and technology use and consumption between the buy and sell sides. In the past, buy-side and sell-side organizations tended to focus exclusively on the activities that designated them members of one of those constituents, but now that segregation is no longer appropriate and it has become increasingly difficult to separate the industry along business lines. Buy-side firms now more closely resemble sell-side firms than at any time in the past, and vice-versa—hence the change.

But wait; there’s more. As you may know, we are in the midst of launching a new content management system (CMS)— and those of you with any experience dealing with CMSes know that nothing is as simple as the designers would have you believe. This part of the transition, scheduled to go live on May 19, has been a long time coming, and again, it is a step in the right direction. It will provide us with a portal through which we can distribute timely, breaking news and analysis, which we weren’t in a position to do in the past. It is an exciting but nonetheless challenging move—a move that we feel strongly will benefit everyone.