Too little, too late for Dow Jones?

Jeff John Roberts of PaidContent.org assesses the strategy at Dow Jones & Co., unveiled Tuesday at an investor presentation by CEO Lex Fenwick.

Roberts writes, “As for the actual state of Dow Jones’ business, two former executives portrayed it in a similar light but offered different assessments of Fenwick’s prescription.

“The executives, who did not want to be named, both said that Dow Jones’ enterprise revenue — particularly that from its newswire service — has been in dramatic decline even as the Journal has held steady (the paper has weathered a rocky ad market thanks to digital subscription revenues).

“The plan to be more Bloomberg-like, however, drew a snort of derision from one of the former executives, who believes that Dow Jones’ product suite — even when lashed together — is too weak and disparate to be useful to enterprise clients. He added that using the combined suite as a reason to increase prices will lead existing customers to bolt altogether.

“The other former executive, however, said the product consolidations that Fenwick is envisioning is exactly the right strategy and that it should have happened a long time ago. The source was less sure that investors would let Dow Jones execute it.

“‘It’s a long-term project and they have a short- or at best a medium-term period to carry it out.'”

Read more here.