IBM Acquires InfoDyne to Create World-Class Platform for Market Data Delivery

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it has acquired InfoDyne Corporation, a privately held software company based in Park Ridge, Illinois. InfoDyne is a leader in high-speed platforms and data feed connectors which combined with IBM’s WebSphere technology will help clients extend transactional integrity to low-latency environments. Financial details were not disclosed.
InfoDyne provides software that is designed to enable today’s highly competitive trading firms and other venues to process exploding data volumes at microsecond response rates. InfoDyne’s market data delivery platform and rich feed handler portfolio take data from hundreds of sources and deliver it in a standardized format, helping customers to control escalating data feed costs.

“IBM is working with the world’s top financial firms on both the buy-side and sell-side, and with infrastructure providers and regulators, to help them adapt to the escalating volume and speed demanded by an increasingly automated and globally integrated industry,” said Tom Rosamilia, general manager, IBM WebSphere. “The addition of InfoDyne’s capabilities strengthens IBM’s product portfolio in providing an exchange-neutral platform, with high-speed connectivity that gives firms faster access to market data, accelerates their ability to execute and complete trades, and enhances the flexibility required to comply with both current and future regulations.”

The widespread adoption of electronic trading has driven exponential growth in transaction and data volumes. Today, an estimated four billion shares per day* trade on the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ and regional exchanges, six times the volume on these same exchanges five years ago.

Despite this sixfold increase in data volume, today’s traders insist that their information technology (IT) infrastructure provide nearly instantaneous execution speeds and data flow. These low-latency environments are constantly monitored to ensure that the raw data and analytics required to support the trading desks are delivered quickly and reliably. Market data is the fuel for these environments, and firms are demanding high-speed systems that can complete all components of a complex evaluation and potential transaction in a millisecond or faster.

Algorithmic and model-driven trading is now being applied far beyond just equities, encompassing multiple asset classes including FX, fixed income, commodities and over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives, in addition to complex cross asset class trading. Because the failure of any single trade component directly affects the overall trading position, the pressure to have connectivity and systems that are fast enough to complete the end-to-end process across all components of the trade lifecycle is immense. The percentage of fills per order has become a key factor in assessing potential profitability and latency for institutions who wish to remain competitive.

In this environment, systems and software not only need the ability to process millions of messages per second from multiple feeds in microseconds, but also require interoperability with a firm’s middle- and back-office applications. The integration of InfoDyne’s extensive feed handler capabilities and data platform with IBM’s messaging and middleware portfolio allows financial firms to digest the enormous amount of data available and use it to their advantage.

“InfoDyne was founded on the principle of using technology to ensure zero tolerance for latency and has developed a platform and supporting software and services specifically designed to provide a competitive advantage to market traders,” said Guy Tagliavia, CEO, InfoDyne Corporation. “The combination of InfoDyne and IBM will result in one of the most powerful software and services offerings for market traders in the financial services industry.”

InfoDyne complements IBM’s broad set of software products for the financial markets industry, for example, WebSphere Front Office for Financial Markets, WebSphere MQ Low Latency, and WebSphere DataPower appliances. Together, the IBM and InfoDyne offerings provide a high-speed market data delivery platform designed to help accelerate the speed and increase the throughput and reliability of financial data transmission. Additionally, WebSphere eXtreme Scale provides an in-memory grid across multiple servers with transactional integrity, transparent fail-over, and constant response times.

The acquisition of InfoDyne further supports IBM’s strategy for offering a comprehensive portfolio of industry-focused software for real-time needs, as underscored by the company’s recent purchase of AptSoft technology and acquisition of Solid Information Technology in January 2008. AptSoft’s technology, which is part of IBM’s WebSphere Business Events software, supports event processing and business applications such as algorithmic trading. Solid Information Technology software provides real-time information access, using an in-memory database, and persistence support for applications requiring high throughput.

Combined with InfoDyne, IBM now offers a comprehensive software portfolio to address the need for real-time and ultra-high speed data delivery and consumption.

InfoDyne products will become part of the IBM Software Group WebSphere software brand.