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2002-08-05
Vol 17 No 44
DATA CONSUMERS

Prudential Financial Takes PFS TraderTools Globally



Prudential Financial has signed a global license agreement for PFS TraderTools’ DS2000 publish-subscribe messaging technology and Trillian streaming data application. The system, which was installed in London, will go live this month for global use.

The asset management and insurance company will utilize the technologies to stream its internally calculated foreign exchange and money market rates, technical analysis and research notes via a standard HTTP protocol directly into a Web browser. This data will be available over the firm’s intranet and Web site to be accessed by thousands of financial advisors and customers globally.

Prudential Financial’s primary motive for the project is a familiar one: to reduce expenditure. Scott Mehlman, first vice president and manager at Prudential Securities, a Prudential Financial company, says, "Our aim is to save costs, predominantly on the development side. Before we had to develop screens and interfaces to receive data from different sources; now PFS’ technologies do it for us. With Trillian and DS2000 we can handle multiple sources, integrate quickly and scale to many thousands of users."

Prudential says the technologies work alongside a proprietary content management system that Mehlman describes as complicated, and may replace it in the future. The firm is also considering streaming real-time prices from market data vendors to its Web services.

Mehlman declines to name the other candidates for the project, but other contenders in the field are Caplin and its RTTP streaming technology, CSK with Slingshot and Tibco’s TIB/Rendezvous.

Bridging the Gap

DS2000, a client/server system, acts as a bridge between datafeeds and user-written applications. It can retrieve data from a range of sources such as Reuters and EBS, although in this case the sources are Prudential’s own foreign exchange and money market trading desks. DS2000 then publishes the data to Trillian, which allows a user to receive the streaming data without installing software or opening a firewall port. Trillian incorporates a proprietary method of HTTP tunneling (patent pending) to keep a constant connection open so customers do not have to refresh or download.

"It’s a scalable solution and can deliver between 14 to 15,000 messages per second per CPU," says Mark Mayerfeld, executive vice president of sales at PFS.

Mayerfeld says the technologies help firms to cut costs by eliminating the need for third-party distribution systems such as Reuters’ Triarch in some areas of a bank or in branches where users do not require premium terminal products.

Customers of PFS TraderTools’ DS2000 and Trillian include Dresdner Bank and Credit Lyonnias. DS2000 has been embedded into financial applications from providers such as Thomson Financial and Sungard.

Mayerfeld says licenses are on the verge of being signed by three other firms but declines to name them.

Kirsten Hyde