September 2015: Another Unfinished Symphony?

I was aware of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based vendor's existence well before its acquisition of Markit's Collaboration Services business in December last year, although it was this move that particularly pricked my interest. That acquisition came barely two months after a consortium, led by Goldman Sachs, invested $66 million in the startup. If ever there was an endorsement that a young company had a bright future, that was it.

But as Anthony Malakian details in his feature for the September issue of Waters, a fly appeared shortly thereafter in the Symphony ointment. The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) wrote to Symphony’s CEO David Gurle on July 22 requesting information about the firm’s communication tools, while on August 10, a week after Symphony unveiled its flagship offering, Symphony for Business Enterprise, US Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to a number of US government agencies requesting information pertaining to the consortium’s Symphony investment and specifically the compliance implications of those institutions using Symphony’s communications tools/services.

I can understand the NYDFS’ interest, but not Warren’s, even though she has extensive commercial law and capital markets experience. That a US senator chose to raise compliance concerns about such a new market entrant, and the speed with which her request to the various government agencies materialized in the wake of the Symphony launch, suggests to me that there is something a bit more Machiavellian going on than simply a senator’s concern that capital markets participants comply with their regulatory obligations.

The NYDFS’ interest and Warren’s letter was apparently spurred by marketing material posted on Symphony’s website that appeared to contravene a number of US capital markets and business communication laws. Clearly both the NYDFS and Warren have a fiduciary duty to their constituents to bring to light any potentially illegal behavior, but I can’t help but think that something is fishy here. Did they just happen upon Symphony’s website and take exception to the firm’s marketing material, or were they tipped off? I doubt whether the answer to that question will emerge anytime soon, but what is certain (to me, anyway) is that Symphony, with the backing of such household names, will find its niche and will flourish.

At this early stage, I think it’s unlikely that the Bloomberg brain trust is having sleepless nights over such developments. But being the incumbent market leader in the communications space, Bloomberg’s popularity has only one way to go … and it’s not up.