Goldman Sachs and a bank consortium launch Symphony
A consortium of 15 banks — led by Goldman Sachs — are bankrolling a messaging and networking platform, Symphony (see Consortium of Leading Financial Firms Invest in New Communication and Workflow Platform — Symphony). David Gurle, an executive with deep messaging experience at Microsoft, Skype, Avaya, and Perzo (acquired by Symphony in September), assumed the role of CEO in October.
The effort appears to be motivated by the financials of Bloomberg terminal use — $24,000/user/year — and as a result the consortium has dropped $66 million into Symphony, a standalone company. According to Kevin Duggan of the New York Post, Goldman has over 19,000 users, and other members of the consortium are using the tool as well.
Symphony acquired technology from Markit last year, and has incorporated collaboration and messaging assets of that company. Markit was also supported by the bank consortium.
In the recent press release, Symphony states that the core technology has been handed over to an unnamed ‘open source foundation’.
I hope to get a demo of the platform in the coming weeks.

