CORE DUMP

Correction: The last issue of TST misspelled the name of new Merrill Lynch head of global information systems Howard Shallcross (TST, Nov. 15).

Question: What time is it when your customer list is much larger than the number of installed systems you're required to support and customize? Answer: Time to sell your digital data distribution system company. Sources say that Bloomberg, Dow Jones Telerate and Reuters have all -- in one way or another -- been given an opportunity to hear what an asset Teknekron Software Systems could be. Now it appears that Bloomberg and Reuters have checked themselves off the list of prospective parents-to-be. Of course, that doesn't make Dow Jones any less of a long shot. So who's next?

Societe Generale, currently housed at 50 Rockefeller Plaza, has taken out a 20-year lease on about 300,000 square feet of the McGraw-Hill Building at 1221 Sixth Ave. The bank's New York-based technology staff has for some time been considering rolling out a consolidated digital data distribution system to support some 300 of its traders in New York City (TST, Dec. 14). SocGen maintains four groups of traders in New York -- including those associated with the bank itself, and those associated with its options trading division, its securities subsidiary and its financial futures brokerage. The bank was also considering moving its New York operations to 101 Hudson St. in Jersey City, N.J., but the powers that be to the east made the bank the usual unrefusable offer. SocGen's lease at Rockefeller Plaza expires at year-end. Among other things, it has been considering a New York-homegrown UNIX-based digital data distribution system to support its traders -- both in New York and worldwide (TST, June 28).

Is it Tourette's Syndrome or is the Merc just itchin' for a fight? As if there haven't been enough expletives blurted on the subject, Chicago Mercantile Exchange vice president Ira Kawaller, in remarks to the National Options & Futures Society in Philadelphia, declared last week that should Reuters exercise its option to bail out of Globex in the spring, the exchanges would find a new technology partner. Under the current Globex pact, any of the three partners -- Reuters, the Merc or the Chicago Board of Trade -- may quit the system should it fail to meet volume and other requirements by April. (Kawaller also told his audience -- by the way -- that Globex would probably not meet the volume levels specified in the current pact. Just in case anyone was wondering.) Later the same day, a CME spokesperson rushed to tell reporters that the Merc remains committed to Globex and to its partnership with Reuters. Any further questions?

Meanwhile, the Merc two weeks ago delisted four of its contracts from Globex. As of Nov. 21, the Merc's volatility- quoted options on the Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, one-month LIBOR and three-month treasury bill futures won't be available on the trading system.

Pauli Overdorff -- formerly a vice president at AGS Information Systems -- has made a move to Bear Stearns & Co.... ACT Financial Systems has hired Michael Seppi as vice president of sales for North and South America. Seppi has previously worked for Kapiti, McDonnell Douglas and BIS Banking Systems, as well as at a consultancy of his own founding, Global Banking Associates.... Stratus Computer has named Gary Haroian president and chief operating officer. He'll also be a member of the fault-tolerant computer system vendor's board. Haroian has been with Stratus since 1983.

Kapiti has introduced Market Watch, a PC-based workstation software option for its FIST digital data distribution system. To date, the vendor has offered only UNIX-based workstations for FIST. Market Watch runs under Microsoft Windows on 486 PCs with at least 4 megabytes of memory. The vendor developed a UNIX-based gateway to link the PC clients to FIST's UNIX-based data distribution servers. A Kapiti official says Market Watch is being promoted as a "cost-effective" alternative to the Reuter Terminal.

OMR Systems Corp. has released a UNIX version of its Trading Assistant trade-processing system. The system previously ran only on a Digital Equipment VAX/VMS platform.