ASP supplement: Buy side exhibits healthy appetite for apps of tap

HFIT is proud to present its third buy-side focused ASP overview. Like the 2005 version, this year's edition is again larger than the previous year's, featuring an additional nine companies – Algorithmics, CMS BondEdge, Data Agent, Paladyne Systems, Point Nine Financial Technologies, Portware, Unilogic, StatPro and SuperDerivatives. Somewhat unusually we've 'lost' two of last year's entrants – Beauchamp Financial and GIS (Global Investment Systems) – both of which were acquired over the course of the last 12 months by Linedata Services. As a result of the acquisition, and due to branding concerns on behalf of Linedata, both Beauchamp and GIS have been 'rolled' into the Linedata listing (at Linedata's insistence) even though both organisations are still very much in existence.

There was a time when 'ASP' was defined as a company that offers individuals or enterprises access over the internet to application programmes and related services that would otherwise have to be located in their own personal or enterprise computers.

I think it would be fair to say that the majority of technology vendors operating on the buy side qualify as ASP vendors based on the above definition, and yet a number of them still see themselves as technology firms who somehow fall into different categories. Maybe it's just an issue of semantics and perceptions.

What is not up for debate, however, is the understanding that the ASP market is alive and well – there have been a number of prominent ASP contracts announced in the last month, including this month's cover news story where Tahoma Capital licensed FNX's Aspen Hedge ASP – and if anything, is growing faster than ever. This is especially the case on the buy side where, for the smaller asset managers, it simply doesn't make economic sense to develop their own technology in-house and/or similarly spend a small fortune on an off-the-shelf application that it has to implement and run on site. The rental or 'utility' model for the smaller players is definitely the way forward. But there is a catch. While most buy-side vendors would say that there is little or no difference between their install applications and the ASP versions of those applications, the general consensus among the end-user community is that there is a big discrepancy. If there wasn't, then any IT manager running software in his/her own environment when a cheaper, more convenient alternative is available, should be frog-marched out of the industry.

That said, however, we are beginning to see the emergence of fully-fledged applications delivered via the internet and not the anaemic, watered-down versions with similarly limited functionality that did the ASP model no favours in its early years.

As with last year, we have purposefully not listed the products and services according to the areas of the industry they occupy, but instead have chosen to list them alphabetically. We have also not evaluated the products – this process is subjective, always contentious, and does not consider the nuances of individual buy-side firms (and their often idiosyncratic requirements), which for any number of reasons, may not necessarily concur with our assertions. This supplement, therefore, is merely an overview of what ASPs – and ASP-type offerings – are available to buy-side organisations.

The information describing each entrant's offering has been supplied by the vendors – it is a free 'service' – although we have taken the liberty of (slightly) editing their submissions for reasons of uniformity. We have also tried to restrict the superlatives, although one or two subjective statements may have slipped though. What is crucial to remember, therefore, is that the HFIT ASP supplement does not set out to endorse one product over the next, but merely to present the types of applications and services available to the greater buy-side community.

Website: www.activfinancial.com
Contact: David Bloomer, director of sales
sales@activfinancial.com
Tel: +1 212 964 2600 ext. 12

Activ Financial provides low latency, real-time market data and data management technology to the financial industry. The company's services include: • ActivFeed, a real-time streaming data feed covering equities, options, and futures information with integrated time-series data, company fundamentals, corporate actions, and institutional news wires; • ActivDirectFeed, a direct exchange feed-processing platform providing access to exchange sources at the customer's facility; • ActivWorkstation, a .Net-based quote terminal providing end-user functionality specific to equity and options traders requiring real-time data at the desktop application layer. All three services are available on a hosted basis. TCP connectivity to the data is facilitated by the internet, all major extranet providers, including: Radianz, Savvis, TNS and ethernet networks including Yipes!, ConEd, MCI and Verizon. Activ is a private company based in Chicago, with offices in New York, Sugar Grove, IL, and Cambridge, UK.

Website: www.algorithmics.com
Contact: sales@algorithmics.com
Tel: +1 416 217 1500

Algorithmics offers Algo Risk, a robust risk management and portfolio modelling platform as an ASP solution. Algo Risk enables asset managers, hedge funds, insurers, trading organisations, corporates and regional banks to measure, monitor and manage risk across multiple asset classes and risk factors, and is supported by a complete range of advanced risk analytics and scenario capabilities. The underlying Mark-to-Future architecture enables the solution to be deployed as either an ASP, in-house or managed service implementation.

Algo Risk provides the following decision support and risk oversight functionalities:
• Value-at-risk (VaR), risk attribution and tracking error measurement;
• Scenario analysis and stress testing capabilities;
• Interactive 'slicing and dicing' and risk concentration assessment;
• Optimisation, risk profile and 'what-if' analysis;
• Limit monitoring and flexible report configuration

Website: www.mscibarra.com
Contact: MSCI Barra Client Service
clientservice@mscibarra.com
Tel: Americas Toll Free +1 888 588 4567
Europe, Middle East & Africa
+ 44 20 7618 2222
Asia Pacific + 852 2848 6740
Japan + 813 5424 5470

MSCI and Barra joined in 2004 when MSCI acquired Barra to create a family of companies. Barra analytics help investors analyse, measure and manage portfolio and firm-wide investment risk. Barra Credit is designed to improve the credit investment process and is used by asset managers, banks and hedge funds. It provides daily market-implied creditworthiness measures from the equity, bond and derivatives markets. BarraOne is a web-based product designed to help portfolio managers ensure that their portfolio's risk profile is consistent with its investment style. It allows users to 'slice and dice' portfolios by supporting flexible reports across multiple asset classes or user-defined variables. Portfolio construction with risk control can be performed via the trade scenario module or the optimiser.

Website: www.calypso.com
Contact: Dutt Chintalapati
vice president
Americas
Tel: +1 212 905 0700

Calypso Technology, Inc. is a provider of capital markets trading solutions for global financial institutions. The Calypso suite of software solutions is fully integrated from front to back and functions across multiple asset classes.

Calypso has established a strategic partnership with Sky Road, making Calypso available to hedge funds on a customised ASP basis via the Sky Road Platform.

Unlike current ASP solutions that have taken a 'one size fits all' approach, the Sky Road Platform leverages Calypso's capital markets software technology in its hosted solution to offer a high level of customisation aligned with the specific requirements of each client.

This solution is designed to allow hedge fund users to benefit from a comprehensive trading solution which can be rapidly deployed to suit their needs.

Website: www.crd.com
Contact: Jen Duggan, sales executive
JenDuggan@crd.com
Tel: +1 781 425 6420 (Burlington,MA)
Guy Dobson, sales executive
GuyDobson@crd.com
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7634 3327 (London)
Cameron Field, managing director
Asia-Pacific, sales@crd.com
Tel: +61 3 9670 5455 (Melbourne)

The Charles River Investment Management System (Charles River IMS) is a front- and middle-office suite for all security types and global, 24x7 operations. Each of the suite's components is also available as a standalone application:

• Charles River Manager offers tools for portfolio management including 'what if' analysis, modelling, portfolio rebalancing, and order generation;

• Charles River Trader provides order management, electronic trading, and liquidity access;

• Charles River Compliance offers global, real-time pre-trade, post-execution, and end-of-day compliance monitoring;

• Charles River Post-Trade, an electronic post-trade processing hub for investment managers, centralises trade matching, confirmation, and settlement workflow across all security types, domiciles and protocols;

• The Charles River Network, a fully-managed private financial network, is built on the BT Radianz backbone and provides real-time Fix-based electronic connectivity to the global financial community. Charles River offers ASP and hosted solutions for Charles River IMS as well as remote application management. These solutions can include Fix administration, daily message log monitoring, hardware hosting and infrastructure set up, troubleshooting and problem resolution, disaster recovery services, and ongoing database administration and system maintenance.

Website: www.cmsbondedge.com
Contact: Tony Armedilla, sales
be.info@interactivedata.com
Tel: +1 310 479 9715

CMS BondEdge provides fixed-income portfolio analytics to the institutional investment community. Via its flagship product, BondEdge, users have access to an array of ex-ante investment decision-making tools, as well as ex-post performance attribution functionality. CMS BondEdge also offers an analytical data feed service with access to key risk measures, including option-adjusted analysis for a variety of fixed income instruments. BondEdge allows users to manage interest rate and credit risk at the portfolio level; clients can hone strategies via customisable market environment simulations, identify bets/unintended mismatches versus any of 300+ global benchmark indices, respond to regulatory and reporting demands, and explain performance results with attribution tools. eBondEdge, the ASP solution, offers nearly all the same hands-on functionality of BondEdge, but allows clients to outsource the monthly processing and system maintenance. eBondEdge, now 10 years old, currently accounts for 15% of the firm's clients.

Website: www.cogencysoft.com
Contact: David Eaton
david.eaton@ferous.com
Tel: +1 617 648 0099

Cogency provides integrated management solutions for the alternative investment industry. Its applications are designed to give users access to data from numerous sources around the business, transform that data into useful insights, and present it in an effective context, enabling users to seize opportunities.

Hedge funds, funds of hedge funds, fund administrators, prime brokers, and asset managers use Cogency's solutions to manage and scale their businesses. Cogency's process, the Cogency Smart Enterprise Advantage, ensures that the firm's clients see measurable results in three months – that, according to the firm, is the Cogency promise.

Cogency's technological platform allows user organisations to provide management and clients with consolidated views of portfolios, accounts, positions, performance, attribution and compliance information in a timely and accurate manner.

Website: www.DataAgent.com
Contact: Bob Leaper
bob@DataAgent.com
Tel: +1 800 772 8314 ext. 9100
+1 617 454 2029

Data Agent's iiSuite of investment intelligence (ii) products offers business intelligence capabilities tailored for the needs of hedge fund and investment management business users, including portfolio managers, research analysts, client services and marketing. Data Agent's iiSuite consists of: iiMart, investment data store with integrated reporting; iiCube, flexible analysis and views; iiAnalytics, derivatives, fixed income, and risk analytics; iiPortal, dashboard integration anywhere. With Data Agent iiSuite installed locally or hosted, users can consolidate holdings and transaction data from multiple accounting systems or prime brokers, combine research, pricing, analytics and returns from multiple sources, and calculate risk statistics and exposures across asset classes. Reduce reliance on spreadsheets and improve 'slice and dice' views over any time period to uncover opportunities and risks, while maintaining full time-series history for SEC compliance and client statements.

Website: www.dwsolutions.com
Contact: Christopher Aronis, vice president,
sales & marketing, info@dwsolutions.com
Tel: +1 781 238 0900

Dataware Solutions' PTAconnect provides a comprehensive outsourced ASP solution for firms managing personal trading compliance. PTAconnect is based on Personal Trading Assistant (PTA), an intuitive, browser-based application that automates compliance with regulations including SEC Rule 17j-1, Investment Company Institute recommendations, Sarbanes-Oxley, and a firm's code of ethics. PTAconnect spans all areas of personal trading – pre-clearance authorisation through post-trade reconciliation and reporting – ensuring comprehensive compliance for any firm subject to personal trading regulations and mandates. Delivered securely via the web, PTAconnect delivers all the benefits of PTA without the need for expensive equipment or extensive internal IT support – all that is needed is a standard web browser. Serving the financial services industry since 1992, Dataware Solutions combines PTAconnect with regulatory, technical and support experience.

Website: www.dstinternational.com
Contact: Kim Holloway, global sales director
kim.holloway@dstintl.com
Tel: +44 (0)20 8339 5565

DST International's (DSTi) application hosting capabilities covers its entire product range, including: DSTi's Front Office Solution, DSTi's Investment Data Management Solution, DSTi's Performance and Risk Solution, DSTi's Investment Accounting Solution, DSTi's Wealth Management Solution and DSTi's Wrap Management Solution. ASP services are available for all of the components of DSTi's Performance and Risk solution including: performance, risk and fixed-income attribution. ASP services include: customised data integration, application hosting, market data, automated operations and application maintenance. DSTi also offers support services including account management, user support and a help desk. All components are available either on a standalone basis or combined. Clients send portfolio and transactional data to the ASP, and DSTi manages the benchmark and other market data as well as running the calculations. Results are available via reports, downloads or enquiries via the internet.

Website: www.fastesp.com
Contact: Scott Kurland
senior managing director
skurland@fastesp.com
Tel: +1 212-485-5127

Electronic Specialist is an institutional brokerage and technology firm offering a suite of high-powered trading applications at wholesale rates to the buy side. Each platform offers functionality tailored to individual client needs and trading strategies. ESP offers clearing through a number of prime brokers or via RVP/DVP, often saving clients between 20%–50% on the cost of execution and clearance, through averaged priced trade settlement. The firm has a history of working with funds in the statistical arbitrage and quantitative space. Trades executed through any of ESP's integrated platforms are automatically captured, formatted and uploaded for clearing at the end of each day, with positions and execution reports available the next morning from the respective clearing firm. ESP's back-office system also handles pre/post-trade allocations, instantaneous crossing, and commission assignments across a large number of managed accounts, if necessary.

Website: www.ezecastlesoftware.com
Contact: Sean Sullivan, EVP, director of global sales
sales@ezecastlesoftware.com
Tel: +1 646 346 1140

Eze Castle Software (ECS) is a provider of global investment management technology to over 270 hedge funds and money managers. The ECS Product Suite provides technology to support multi-asset-class order management, real-time P&L, portfolio modelling, electronic trading, third-party data integration, compliance, mobile connectivity, strategy management, and commission management. ECS offers ASP solutions for: Third-party data integration: Tradewinds is a secure ASP data transfer service for interfacing between 80 third-party systems including order management systems, prime brokers, accounting systems, compliance applications, portfolio analytic systems, and other third parties. Mobile connectivity to the OMS: EzeMobile is a secure access portal that empowers investment professionals to perform investment work from a hand-held device or standard web browser. It provides investment professionals with the ability to trade on the go, monitor real-time P&L, and retrieve real-time data.

Website: www.ffastfill.com
Contact: Steve Tucker
sales director
steve.tucker@ffastfill.com
Tel: +44 (0)20 7665 8900

FfastFill is a provider of application services to the global derivatives community utilising the latest developments in technology and automating trade flow processes across a firm's front, middle and back offices. FfastFill's solutions encompass electronic order routing, clearing, risk management and back-office reporting as part of an integrated, yet modular system architecture.

FfastFill's application services provide institutions with cost savings in their administrative and IT departments and can reduce the investment costs associated with maintaining their own technology infrastructure.

All FfastFill's services are delivered against a contracted Service Level Agreement (SLA), which can be tailored to an institution's requirements.

FFastFill has over 100 staff across its service centres in London and Chicago and software development centre in Prague.

Website: www.fidessa.com
Contact: Matthew Paré
matthew.pare@fidessa.com
Tel: +44 (0)207 929 9200

The Fidessa Workstation provides a fully-managed, broker-neutral, execution management service (EMS) for the buy side. Its order management tool provides workflow functionality across traders and regional desks. Over 140 brokers provide access to DMA, algorithmic and care order services for global markets. Advanced trading tools include list management for baskets and wave trading. Support for inbound order flow over Fix means integration with your own, or other, internal systems. With comprehensive, integrated market-data included – such as real-time international markets, news, fundamentals, broker estimates and charts – the Fidessa Workstation is a one-stop-shop solution for your execution management needs. Fidessa Workstation EMS is part of the Fidessa product suite which offers trading systems, market data and global connectivity solutions to the buy side and sell side. Fidessa supports all tiers of the financial community and serves over 8,500 users at around 200 global financial institutions.

Website: www.f-tradeware.com
Contact: Graham Bright
head of international sales

g.bright@f-tradeware.com
Tel: +44 (0)20 7493 2773

Financial Tradeware is a London-based provider of integrated solutions for small to medium sized investment management firms, fund managers and hedge funds, covering the full trade life cycle. It is part of the Dharma Group of companies, based in Los Gatos, California and benefits from the joint contributions and experiences within the group of market traders, business analysts, financial services professionals and skilled Microsoft certified programmers.

The company has developed a suite of applications that integrate Straight Through Process (STP) real-time trading, back office administration, accounting and compliance.

Ultra.net, S-Messenger and H-Fund are the company's flagship products and are all based on Microsoft.NET infrastructure.

Website: www.flextrade.com
Contact: Rich McGraw, rich.mcgraw@flextrade.com
Tel: +1 516 627 8993 ext. 236
Bertrand Rassat
bertrand.rassat@flextrade.com
Tel: +44 (0)207 796 3002

FlexTrade's ASP offering is known as FlexTraderexp, which offers users all the benefits of FlexTrader – FlexTrade's algorithmic trading and order management platform – via a hosted solution, encompassing all facets of electronic and rules-based trading. FlexTraderexp, a pre-packaged product that offers a variety of trading strategies, is desktop deployable; all users need is connectivity to FlexTrade's network. Flextrade provides personalised programming assistance and consulting. FlexTraderexp offers: customisable algorithmic trading; real-time market data and depth of book; integrated smart router; unlimited broker, ECNs and destinations; pre- and post-trade analysis; pre-configured or customised views to control trading strategies; access to brokers' proprietary strategies; secure trading extranet with complete back-up; disaster recovery site.

Website: www.fnx.com
Contact: Jane Beren, Aspen Hedge director
jberen@fnx.com
Juan Gonzalez, business development
Americas: jgonzalez@fnx.com
Gregor Rominger, business development Europe & Asia: grominger@fnx.com
Tel: +1 484 530 4400

Founded in 1992, FNX Limited provides STP solutions for the international financial community. FNX's Aspen Hedge is a fully managed ASP designed for the buy side. As a complete trading and risk management solution, Aspen Hedge is designed to be the optimal system for multi-asset and new start-up funds. Supporting all asset classes from equities and FX to exotic options, fixed income and derivatives, it provides deal capture, P&L, analytics, risk management tools, interfacing capability and comprehensive security. Aspen Hedge allows fund managers to perform comprehensive portfolio management anywhere, anytime – with no technology investment required, and without the weight of the license and maintenance initial investment.

Website: www.fricorporation.com
Contact: Dino Gaudio, senior vice-president, sales and marketing
dgaudio@fricorporation.com
Tel: +1 416 598 9500 ext.164

FRI Corporation, founded in 1968, provides asset, wealth, trading and risk management software to investment managers, hedge funds, mutual funds, plan sponsors, banks, and exchanges. FRI's Raison SPS is an integrated suite of front-, middle- and back-office applications designed to support multi-currency, multi-lingual, multi-accounting and multi-manager methodologies for trade decision, asset allocation, trading, compliance, settlements, reconciliation, performance measurement and attribution, invoicing, client reporting and fund accounting. Raison SPS is modular and scalable with data interfaces for deployment as an STP solution or in conjunction with a best-of-breed design. All applications are available on a licensed, facilities-managed, or ASP basis. FRI's Securities Information Services include global real-time, end-of-day and intra-day securities pricing and bond valuations and exchange data with corporate actions, entitlements and security master.

Website: www.ids.net
Contact: maria@idsnet.com
Tel: +310 478 4015

Integrated Decision Systems (IDS), a unit of Checkfree, develops enterprise portfolio management solutions for the financial services industry, with over $4 trillion in assets under management on its systems. Since 1981, IDS's focus has been on creating scalable, open architecture solutions that provide functionality for a dynamic and diverse marketplace, combined with systems support. IDS designs, develops and supports a modular product suite that includes: Global Investment Manager, GIM Wealth Management, GIM Prime Brokerage and the AIMR/GIPS compliant performance systems GIM Performance and CALiPER2. IDS Services is the outsourced web version of Global Investment Manager and GIM Wealth Management. IDS products are in use at many brokerage firms, mutual funds, investment management firms and securities lending firms.

The firm is headquartered in New York, its technology and support centre is in Los Angeles and it has sales and support staff in London.

Website: www.derivatives.com
Contact: Yvonne Dahl
director of sales
sales@imagine-sw.com
Tel: +1 212 317 7686

Founded in 1993, Imagine Software is a provider of full-service hosted investment management solutions for the global financial industry. Its Derivatives.com is a real-time web-based derivatives trading, portfolio and risk management system that handles all asset types and multiple trading strategies. Developed for institutional investing companies of all sizes, it combines the enterprise functionality of the Imagine Trading System with the benefits of software on demand, straight-through-processing, corporate actions and holdings management, a complete security master, and access to independently maintained pricing inputs. The New York-based software specialist says Derivatives.com has quickly become the system of choice for many of the most successful alternative investment firms looking to manage assets and minimise market risks, with risk transparency and operational efficiency.

Website: www.indataweb.com
Contact: Melissa Stevens,
marketing coordinator
mstevens@indataweb.com
Tel: +1 858 847 6572
Toll Free: +1 888 454 4060

Indata is a provider of enterprise software and ASP solutions for investment management firms. Indata Online (IOL), the firm's internet-based attribution and performance reporting solution for institutional money managers, allows users to evaluate the time-weighted rates of return and attribution of portfolios, asset classes, sectors, industries and securities in accordance with AIMR PPS standards. IOL includes other analytical data including peer-group universe comparisons, selected portfolio characteristics relative to user-designated benchmarks, third-party universe comparisons on a daily, weekly, MTD, QTD, YTD and annualised basis by fund type, asset allocation, style and capitalisation. IOL also provides an online reporting package, which includes a number of graphical and client-oriented reports that can be used for marketing or analytical purposes. Users can create client statements based on available reports and view report preferences online.

Website: www.investmentscorecard.com
Contact: Mark Portanova,
senior vice-president, sales and marketing

mportanova@investmentscorecard.com
Dian Luffman, director,
marketing dluffman@investmentscorecard.com

Investment Scorecard produces independent and objective performance reports for financial advisers and their clients. The company electronically receives raw accounting data of individual portfolios, normalises the data for performance processing, calculates return