CS First Boston said it will rely on a new computing platform from Informix Software Inc. to bring a paperless trading floor closer to reality.
Dubbed Web Datablade, the system will purportedly enable the investment bank to speed the transmission of research data over an intranet - an internal network using the Internet as its underlying communications technology.
The intranet is seen as a way for employees of firms like CS First Boston, which has 3,000 equity and fixed-income traders around the world, to access up-to-the-minute information that in the past often arrived after significant delays.
"We can continue to reduce our costs by making the distribution of information electronic instead of on paper," said Michelle Kildunne, director of fixed-income trading technology at CS First Boston. "It also gives us a more timely and reliable format for sending that information."
CS First Boston will house its research library on a Sun Microsystems Solaris server.
Using the Informix software, the data base can be updated continually without interrupting access to the information for users at their own computer terminals. End-users' computers - known as clients - can be customized to cull regularly updated data from the central server.
By next spring, the New York-based investment bank hopes to offer selected clients access to the Global Research Library over the Internet, said Ms. Kildunne.
The system also makes it possible to store nontext data like graphics, audio, and video on a computer server. The content could be transmitted across the global computer network.
Informix, which specializes in data base applications for client/server computing systems, announced its new Web strategy this week. Dubbed universal web architecture, the approach revolves around a series of servers and software modules that help create these so-called "intelligent" Web sites.
"First- and second-generation Web sites offered only static delivery of information," said Kim Wesselman, director of Web marketing for Informix. "This third generation will be able to store all content - text, graphics, audio - in data bases and dynamically deliver it to users."
The Silicon Valley software company has forged several key alliances, notably with Sun Microsystems Inc. and its Java computing language, over the last year to support the Web strategy.
In January, Informix acquired Illustra Information Technologies Inc., a maker of software to manage data in graphical formats. Informix has incorporated that software into its servers to create a system that allows companies to build data warehouses that include more than just "flat file" information, said Ms. Wesselman.
Most important, she said, the platform frees companies to develop their own applications without the distraction of building new system interfaces. "Older Web sites have limited interactivity," said Ms. Wesselman. "We have developed an open platform that offers high performance and manageability."
CS First Boston executives said the open platform is an attractive feature. The Informix system will replace an existing, internally developed model.
"It allows us to focus on the functionality of applications rather than dealing with the back end," said Ms. Kildunne. "It was the only commercially available system that extends the relational data base to integrate rich data types, and it reduces our data costs."
