In Brief: KX Systems Signs European Marketing Deal

KX Systems said its K application development environment and Kdb relational data base management system will be marketed in Europe by a Northern Ireland firm, First Derivatives Ltd.

First Derivatives, a consulting firm that specializes in a derivatives and risk management, also has rights to install and support Kx Systems products for European clients.

KX Systems entered the European market when Arthur Willis, developer of the K programming language, sold the K software to Union Bank of Switzerland in 1993 under an exclusive three-year contract.

Since that contract expired, most of its sales have been to North American financial companies, including Lehman Brothers, CIBC Oppenheimer, and Bank of New York. KX works with PricewaterhouseCoopers to distribute its software in the United States.

Lehman is using the Kdb relational data base to build a fixed-income portfolio system that can be accessed over the World Wide Web. CIBC Oppenheimer has licensed K to build a derivatives trading system for its convertible bond desk. Bank of New York is using K to develop next- generation risk analytics.

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