---------------------------------------------------------------------------- FOURTEEN SECURITIES TRADING APPLICATIONS FOR SPARC MOVE TO OPEN LOOK GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE SunFLASH Vol 18 #18 June 1990 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Includes Six New Trading Packages NEW YORK CITY --June 12, 1990-- Leading securities trading applications for SPARC(TM) workstations from Sun Microsystems are rapidly adopting the OPEN LOOK(TM) graphical user interface. Fourteen applications, including six new products from Renaissance Software, Programit and FTT Alphameric, are now being shipped that utilize OPEN LOOK, the next-generation user interface that is standard on all Sun systems. The announcement was made at the Securities Industry Association (SIA) show being held here from June 12-14, where each of the 14 vendors will demonstrate their OPEN LOOK products to the public. Besides these OPEN LOOK applications now on the market, two leading integrators for dealing room systems are incorporating OPEN LOOK into their products. Micrognosis is currently adding OPEN LOOK to its Micrognosis IWS (Intelligent Workstation). Teknekron has also commited to move its Digital Trader Workstation System to OPEN LOOK. The emergence of OPEN LOOK applications will give traders a much-needed consistent interface across software packages. Additionally, OPEN LOOK's "drag and drop" capabilities enable users to "drag" iconized files from one vendor's application and "drop" them into OPEN LOOK applications from other vendors, thereby integrating data from different applications and various systems on their workstation screen. Trader productivity is also boosted through OPEN LOOK's simple, fast, point-and-click commands. The proliferation of OPEN LOOK will enhance Sun's industry-leading position in the financial services arena. According to recent figures from International Data Corp., Sun systems had the leading share -- 55 percent -- of the financial services market in 1989. Open Platform Is Key to Innovation "SPARC/UNIX(R)/OPEN LOOK/ONC(TM) is now the de facto standard platform for workstation-based financial services applications," said Jordan Graham, manager of financial services marketing at Sun. (Open Network Computing, ONC, is Sun's multi-vendor, distributed computing environment.) "With these open, standard technologies, customers can modularly 'plug in' applications from various vendors to build completely integrated solutions in a totally open environment. This freedom of choice is in sharp contrast to the closed, proprietary trading architectures touted by the large, traditional computer vendors," he said. OPEN LOOK was designed by Sun and AT&T based on technology licensed from Xerox, the originator of the concept of graphical user interfaces. Since OPEN LOOK is independent of any particular hardware or software implementation, it allows software developers to offer a consistent interface across various platforms. For example, Sun will offer OPEN LOOK toolkits for UNIX workstations from Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Digital Equipment Corp. In addition, third-party developer TGV Inc. will sell a toolkit for VAX/VMS environments. One of the advantages of OPEN LOOK is that development and porting are very quick. According to Carl Nelson, president of Access Technology, one of the vendors who ported its product to OPEN LOOK, "The support and programming tools provided by Sun enabled us to port the 20/20 RealTime Spreadsheet to OPEN LOOK within a matter of days." New Sun Financial Applications Incorporating OPEN LOOK Advanced Software Automation -- The Software Maintenance Solution toolkit creates an interactive development environment for software maintenance and re-engineering, including analysis of test coverage, runtime and complexity. The toolkit reduces software maintenance costs by making code easier to review, modify, document and manage. FTT Alphameric -- The Open Trading System (OTS) provides reception and distribution of all major digital market feeds. It also offers full support for realtime analytic applications as well as realtime spreadsheets and graphics. JTS Computer Systems Ltd. -- The OPEN IMAGE document image-processing system is designed to automate complex, paper-driven processes found in such industries as securities, banking and insurance. The system integrates the Sybase relational database, NFS and RPC network services, OPEN LOOK, standard optical disk systems and support for multiple types of scanners and document printers. Logistical Information Machine -- The Market Information Machine is a unique system allowing the securities trader to perform sophisticated ad hoc queries against historical stock and commodity data. It lets traders easily structure SQL queries using OPEN LOOK. With the system, the trader can gain new knowledge about price and seasonal patterns, allowing them to trade with more confidence. Programit -- Through its NETI intelligent traders workstation, Programit offers computer-to-computer message switching and network distribution of realtime data. The unique advantage of NETI is its ability to transparently share market data services -- Quotron, Reuters, NASDAQ -- over a local area network, thereby reducing monthly information cost. Renaissance Software -- OPUS is a comprehensive trading and support system for valuing, hedging, analyzing and processing derivative product transactions such as interest rate and currency swaps, caps, collars and swap options. Renaissance combined object-oriented methodology with internally developed CASE tools to take specifications designed by financial engineers and automatically create OPUS applications. Existing Sun Applications Now Incorporating OPEN LOOK Access Technology, Inc. -- The 20/20 RealTime Spreadsheet is the first spreadsheet that fully exploits the technological benefits of the next-generation trader workstation based on Sun platforms. With this spreadsheet, traders can receive realtime market data updates into their spreadsheet and perform immediate analysis. Algorithmics -- The company has developed a generic proprietary methodology for measuring the overall risk of a trading desk. RiskWatch, which implements this methodology, is capable of presenting multiple views of the global risk position. Algorithmics also offers HedgeWatch, a system that enables the exposure of the entire trading desk to be monitored in realtime. Digital Solutions, Inc. -- InTrader is a full-function investment banking system designed to handle the trading floor and back office needs of today's trading environment. InTrader provides on-line capture, realtime position keeping, decision support, accounting services and portfolio management services for dealer banks, investment banks and brokerage firms. EFFIX Systems -- FX-Aide is a trader workstation that provides the financial professional with information and advanced decision support, allowing for the rapid exploitation of market opportunities. The EFFIX system communicates with other information systems as well as the majority of page and record-based feeds. EFFIX is distributed worldwide by Reuters, PLC. Fame Software Corp. -- FAME is an interactive enduser analytical environment designed to solve today's investment problems. Capabilities include data management, reporting, graphics, time series analytics, system building and seamless data interfaces. Integrated Analytics Corp. -- StockWatcher, a multiple-trigger financial alarm, allows traders to include factors beyond simple price motion in monitoring activity in a large set of securities. MarketMind is a flexible tool that lets traders create intelligent realtime monitors. Market Vision Corp. -- Products from Market Vision include Athena, a powerful and flexible charting service; Market Data Spreadsheet, which combines the flexibility of a spreadsheet with the added power of realtime and historical data feeds; and MV Link, data communications software that links realtime and historical data with applications in a UNIX system. Unify Corp. -- Unify offers the ACCELL Integrated Development environment used to create new business applications; and the UNIFY 4.0 RDBMS, a high-performance extended relational database management system. Existing Sun Applications Moving To OPEN LOOK Micrognosis -- The Micrognosis IWS utilizes the power of the Sun workstation to perform value-added processing, such as realtime analytics, spreadsheet updating in realtime, graphics and interfaces to accounting systems and position-keeping systems. Teknekron -- The Digital Trader Workstation System uses the Teknekron Information Bus (TIB) platform to deliver realtime market data to traders and to dynamically integrate this data with all applications on their trading floors. The Trader Workstation is available for FX, Equity, and Fixed Income trades. The TIB has been made available to third-party software firms for integration of their applications. Sun Microsystems, Inc., headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a leading worldwide supplier of network-based distributed computing systems, including professional workstations, servers and UNIX operating system and productivity software. ### SPARC is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. NFS is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. OPEN LOOK is a trademark of AT&T. UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T. All other products or services mentioned in this document are identified by the trademarks or service marks of their respective companies or organizations. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sunflash is an electronic mail news service from Sun Microsystems, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA. It is targeted at Sun Users and Customers. As a field sales and support office, we try to keep SunFlash useful and interesting to you. If you have any comments or suggestions for enhancing SunFlash, please send them to us. 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