 Using technology to break in to the financial data market |
Information is the lifeblood of many businesses these days.
That's particularly true in the world of money-making.
Big investment firms and some big-hitting private investors spend much of their time looking at information on sophisticated screens on their desks.
Getting those facts and figures to them has itself become a cut-throat competitive and high-tech business.
 All you need is your existing PC  Marc Pinter-Krainer
QuoteTerminal |
Austrian-born Marc Pinter-Krainer has been obsessed since his schooldays with programming charts of price movements. It seemed only natural that he should turn his hobby into a career.
His company, Knowledge Technology Solutions, has designed a new way for City stockbrokers and investors to look at all the information they need.
It's called QuoteTerminal, using what Marc calls "thin client" technology.
This means it's easy for clients to use.
Software
"A user typically requiring to access real-time market data requires infrastructure that needs to be installed on site," explains Marc.
"Our product is really quite unique because no such requirements are there and all you need is your existing PC on your desktop to connect up to the internet.
"The software we have written to run the system runs at the server end, where we are, not where the client is."
Marc also believes his product meets two key demands:
clients want to access the latest in technology and the internet is developing fast as a platform for this type of information because market conditions are poor, there's a greater emphasis on systems being cost-effective. Confident
City dealers buy and sell millions of pounds worth of shares or other investments at any one time, so they need to be confident about the facts they're basing their decisions on.
There are two big names in the information game - Bloomberg and Reuters.
Both companies use screens and systems which allow you to trade simply by pressing a button.
The cream of the competition is Bloomberg - you might recognise the name; founder Michael Bloomberg took over from Rudolph Giuliani as mayor of New York.
The company will install one of their workstations in your office for around �1,000 a month.
Reuters quoted us up to �750.
Cheaper services
Against that, Marc charges �90 a month for his QuoteTerminal, which shows the information but doesn't let you trade.
There are other, cheaper services as well, including:
- also on the internet - from Royal Blue - transmits via a TV aerial - internet-based - internet-based. So what does Marc believe gives his system the edge?
He thinks it's the fact that users can log in from any computer - at home, in the office or on the move.
It competes very well in terms of content with all of the other systems John Joseph Nally
Williams de Broe |
He currently has about 30 major clients, among them Williams de Broe in the City of London. It is using QuoteTerminal for stockbroking staff who work in the business but aren't part of the small band which actually does the firm's share dealing.
"It competes very well in terms of content with all of the other systems," says director John Joseph Nally.
"It's also very good for its ease of use.
"If you don't need to know in an instant on a dealing basis what is happening in the marketplace, but you just want to follow it in a very fast way, this is an extremely cost-effective solution."
The firm is also looking at how it can benefit by accessing the system remotely, from laptops on trains, for example.
Good price
Marc believes that as companies examine their costs, they'll be looking for systems which deliver what they want at a good price.
"They're used to paying a lot of money for market data services which offer a lot more than they perhaps need," he says.
"The idea is that we offer them the essential market data at a fraction of the cost."
Marc's company still needs more users to break even.
But he hopes that as long as he can maintain his technological edge, his product will stay in demand.
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