Single Dealer Platform – Where are we?
A few years ago multi dealer platforms were the rage (Tradeweb etc), now it appears single dealer platforms (SDP) is the new trend. BARX and Autobahn have the lead, and with the recent announcement of Matrix, it will be curious to see if any other players venture into the game. One choice all SDP’s will need to make is what RIA to use: Ajax, Flex or Silverlight. If Ajax is the choice, then its probably worth while considering GWT given the Google push (Wave). I hear various banks are considering Flex, and others are choosing Silverlight. Which ever option you go for, you need to consider the big picture, and not just there here and now.
Another choice that has to be made is the server side architecture. Again there are multiple choices:
- Request/Response separated from Push (COMET) server
- Combined Request/Response/Push (COMET) server
Kaazing follows the second option, as does Liberator. If the Flex path is followed, the LCDS is an option. Today Microsoft’s RIA Services isn’t a contender, this may change in the future.
Then there’s the big question of easy of intergration. The sell-side already has price streams, pricing engines, historical data and a boat load of other pieces of data and infrastucture that they want to SDP enable. Most SDP developments are actually massive integration excercises, thus any platform that offers out the box help is possibly worth while looking at e.g. Caplin
Finally, remember that any SDP needs appropriate monitoring and management software to support your clients and provide appropriate SLA’s.
Sidebar: Let’s cut to the chase; Caplin’s home page is….boring! What Caplin has under the hood is an interesting platform that provides push server technology and a single dealer platform coupled together into a box that offer clients the opportunity to jump start there single dealer portal – probably the overriding reason why Barcap choose them. It’s therefore interesting to see they are going the Silverlight route – thank god they’ve decided to go the native route and not rely on the bridge.
