This month I published an article in Inside Market Data called Data Management's "Abstract" Period (see June 13th issue of IMD). I am of the strong belief that proprietary data distribution platforms can be rationalized and greater value and performance can be achieved with the use of data abstraction solutions. What do you think?

This week a trading architecture summit is taking place in NYC. Many distinguished executives from our industry will discuss a number of important topics from dealing with regulatory requirements, to high frequency and ultra-low latency trading. Perhaps the technical and business benefits of an industry standard market data abstraction solution will also become a productive topic of discussion at the summit.     

Where there is data, there will be Feedhandlers. But who wants to deal with the periodic care and feeding required to keep them running properly? It probably makes sense for data distributors and consumers to seek out organizations that dedicate their livelihood to Feedhanlders.  In turn, both data distributors and consumers can then direct valuable in-house resources toward advancing their core business and building new innovations.

A well-managed product launch process is vital for any organization that creates software products. While it is detail oriented and often painstaking it is key critical for the successful metamorphosis of a piece of code into a quality and sustainable “product”. You’ve seen what happens when it is done wrong; release dates are extended, features are left out, and worse of all, unforeseen bugs and functionality problems are found post launch!

When will the cost of change become less then the cost of business as usual? I believe the time is now. For years market data consumers have been restricted in their ability to reduce operating costs and maximize efficiency. This is due to the proprietary nature of the platforms and symbology they use to manage their market data. By adopting an open enterprise market data solution, for which data can be seamlessly published and subscribed, financial services firms can begin to address this issue in earnest. 

We are excited to announce our fifth feed handler release with support for ArcaBook and Arca Trades. ArcaBook has long been our second-most requested feed and, joining OPRA, ITCH, and BATS gives us support for all of the most requested feeds.

We are excited to announce our fourth feed handler release with, at long last, support for OPRA. Since launching our suite of open source feed handlers OPRA has been our #1 requested feed and we're thrilled to be able to support it with this release.

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As the newly appointed Executive Director of Collaborative Software Foundation (CSF), I am so pleased to see the continued growth of the OpenMarketData community. The release of the CSI MDAL™ Specification, the product of great collaboration between CSI developers and Bank of America Merrill Lynch market data subject matter experts, is a real milestone for the community and CSF.

Today, CSI MDAL™ Specification is released, a milestone in a movement to produce choice of best of breed market data, message transport, and ultimately a distribution platform to the financial industry. In a time when managing cost seems always to bubble to the top, CSI MDAL™ Specification (known as “MDAL” going forward) is a foundation for developing applications with a vendor agnostic strategy while giving the client firm the opportunity to build a richer and more flexible market data distribution framework.