Capital markets firms routinely weigh their nice-to-have capabilities against their need-to-have platforms. In such a heavily regulated environment, the need-to-haves often tip the scales.

While terms like “innovative” and “cutting-edge” tend to get reserved for front-office technologies and datasets, some vendors have attempted to give facelifts to the back office, where more esoteric functions like accounting, record maintenance, and reference data are managed.

To that end, data giant