ThomsonReuters: Palantir Not Enough Math?

April 6, 2016

I read “TRRI Users Will Gain Access to FiscalNote’s Legislative Modeling Techniques.” The licensees of Palantir Metropolitan and the owner of Westlaw smart software for legal eagles is pushing into new territory. That’s probably good news for stakeholders who have watch ThomsonReuters bump into a bit of a revenue ceiling in the last few years.

According to the write up:

The main benefit of the agreement [with FiscalNote] will grant Thomson Reuters’ Regulatory Intelligence (TRRI) newly extended capabilities across its predictive legislative analytics. TRRI is a global solution that helps clients focus and leverage their regulatory risk. Per the agreement, FiscalNote will help provide TRRI users with likelihood factors and other insights relegated to specifics pieces of legislative passage.

Interesting. I assumed that Palantir’s platform would have the extensibility to handle this type of content processing and analysis. Wrong again.

I learned:

FiscalNote utilizes machine learning and natural language processing in its modeling techniques that help it engineer models to conduct a host of analyses on open government data. In essence, these models allow FiscalNote to automatically analyze how legislation is going to yield any material impact via a combination of factors such as legislators, committee assignments, actions taken, bill versions, and amendments.

Wait, wait, don’t tell me. Westlaw’s smart software which can do many wonderful advanced text processing tricks is not able to perform in the manner of FiscalNote.

My hunch is that the deal has less to do with technologies, extensible or not, and more to do with getting some customers and an opportunity to find a way to pump up those revenues. Another idea: Is ThomsonReuters emulating IBM’s tactic of buying duplicative technology as a revenue rocket booster?

Perhaps Palantir and Westlaw should team up so ThomsonReuters’ customers have additional choices? Think of the XML slicing and dicing strategy with the intelligence and legal technology working in harmony.

Stephen E Arnold, April 6, 2016

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Marketing, News, Text processing

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.