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PLATFORM COMPUTING BUILDS GRID MOMENTUM IN FINANCIAL SERVICES

Platform Computing Inc announced Platform Symphony 2.0, the most powerful production- proven, enterprise-class Grid computing software available for financial services institutions.

Platform Symphony 2.0 is specifically designed to help financial services institutions meet the business-critical needs associated with capital markets trading and risk management by accelerating time-sensitive and compute-intensive applications over a virtualized computing infrastructure, delivering faster and more accurate results as well as increased cost savings. Leading financial institutions around the world, including JPMorgan Chase and Groupe Societe Generale are using Platform Symphony to improve front- and back-office application performance, deliver guaranteed service execution and reduce processing times from days or hours to minutes.

"Societe Generale needed to roll out a Grid computing solution very quickly and reliably. Key factors in choosing Platform Computing's Grid computing software were the company's 10 years plus experience in delivering a proven, reliable and mature product and quality of support and responsiveness in Europe," said Alain Benoist, CIO of Debt & Finance for SG Corporate and Investment Banking. "Time to market has been another important measurement of ROI, and we've been able to implement a Grid computing solution in a few months. Also a priority has been the lower cost of supervision and management which has meant both increased ease of administration and cost effectiveness."


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Grid computing is here!


Built on a foundation of 11 years of high performance Grid computing experience, Platform Symphony 2.0 is based on a common infrastructure, which enables organizations to reuse existing services and maximize ROI and reduce deployment time, by quickly and easily scaling throughout the enterprise. New Platform Symphony Version 2.0 features include:

  • Superior Process Automation: Platform Symphony 2.0 allows an organizations to tie more business processes into a virtualized compute backbone improving system productivity, reducing operating cost, guaranteeing resource availability during peak demand and ensuring strict batch time windows are met. Platform Symphony 2.0 supports online, batch and dual modes for superior flexibility and faster time to guaranteed results
  • Enhanced and Open Service-based Architecture: Symphony's enhanced architecture delivers faster application performance, improved response time and virtually unlimited scalability. Platform Symphony 2.0 runs on existing legacy hardware and software while leveraging Intel and Linux-based standards. Built-in redundancy enables customers to run more high performance applications on affordable commodity hardware platforms without compromising reliability, flexibility and deployment
  • Adapter for Microsoft Excel: With Platform Symphony 2.0, organizations can build Grids department-by-department starting with Microsoft Excel worksheets and then growing to one business critical application at a time, delivering faster results and single point of control without the need for extra programming and training. XLLs executing through Platform Symphony 2.0 can be removed from the desktop, enabling the administrator to control and monitor access.

"Financial services organizations require more flexible standards-based architectures which ultimately lower TCO and break down LOB and enterprise silos," said Larry Tabb, founder and CEO of The Tabb Group. "Grid computing products allow for access to computing power when needed, as needed for better application reliability, manageability and performance which in turn means reduced credit and market risk and increased business continuity."

The financial services industry is increasingly challenged with achieving more application performance and reduced total cost of IT ownership while still ensuring a high level of service execution, security and control. Platform Symphony Version 2.0 addresses these challenges in one powerful package by offering a comprehensive set of Grid-powered capabilities engineered for business-critical front- and back-office operations. To remove the uncertainty and doubt associated with significant IT changes, Platform Symphony Version 2.0 works with the legacy hardware, operating systems and programming languages found in the typical financial institution, delivering significantly higher return on assets and time to deployment.

According to recent report published by The Tabb Group, Grid technology will be an integral part of virtually every major firm's infrastructure within the next five years. The Tabb Group estimates that Grid software and services spending will grow at annual compound rate of more than 60 percent from $59 million to approximately $680 million over the next five years.

"Following the New York launch of our Financial Services Center of Excellence in September, 2003, Platform Symphony 2.0 is a significant milestone for Platform, as it reinforces our leadership, experience and production-proven technology in the financial services industry," said Robert Boettcher, vice president of financial services for Platform Computing. "Our customers have some of the most demanding, business-critical environments in the world -- and we have worked closely with them to develop a software solution to support their requirements for highly scaleable and flexible IT infrastructures, enabling them to leverage commoditized compute infrastructures."

Underpinning Platform Symphony is the robust Virtual Execution Machine (VEM). The VEM is a high performance, product-proven Grid architecture that incorporates a common infrastructure, extending throughout the organization. The VEM has been torture-tested with over 1,600 customers in a variety of demanding industries and business-critical applications delivering unparalleled scalability, robustness, speed and flexibility.

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