IBM Wins Worldwide Rights To ISE's New RDXII System

The IBM-based trading room system developed by the International (London) Stock Exchange is preparing to cross the Channel and may one day reach the other side of the Atlantic.

IBM recently obtained worldwide marketing rights to RDXII, the upgrade of the RADIX system that it has been selling in the U.K. since September 1987. While the system was under development at the ISE from 1985 to 1987, it was known as ORBIT.

The agreement announced by IBM and the ISE in London earlier this fall is non-exclusive and allows the ISE to market RDXII directly or through other vendors.

Some observers say the new multifunctional workstation the ISE is developing to replace terminals carrying its TOPIC service will eventually compete against RDXII.

Five securities firms are currently using the original RADIX in London and IBM is expected to announce the first non-U.K. customer for RDXII shortly.

Like its predecessor, RDXII handles only digital data feeds, which gives the product limited appeal in markets where many information services are available in video form only.

When Daiwa Europe Ltd. installed new trading facilities in London a year ago, it selected RADIX for its equities department, but choose the Micrognosis TRADE system for its fixed-income area. The need to access video feeds ruled out RADIX as a choice in the bond department, says Nigel King, telecommunications manager for Daiwa Europe.

The main difference between RDXII and RADIX is that RDXII features open programming interfaces that allow users and third-party vendors to connect their products to the trading room system.

The OPIs consist of libraries that allow users to write programs in "C" that insert or extract data into the RDXII network.

The libraries can be used to facilitate greater integration between front- and back-office systems. At a recent IBM exhibition in London, BIS Banking Systems linked its MIDAS position-keeping and risk management system to RDXII.

RDXII uses the IBM PS/2 as a trader workstation and a ruggedized version of the PS/2 known as the IBM 7532 industrial computer for gateways and servers. The trader workstations, gateways and servers are connected by an IBM token ring network.

The IBM PC LAN Program runs on the file server. Communications between workstations, gateways and servers occur in IBM NETBIOS sessions. No broadcast communication takes place.

The functions of RDXII's System Management Center are divided between two units. The program that controls users logging in and out runs on a 7532 industrial computer while the configuration program including composite page editors and facilities for creating and amending user profiles runs on a PS/2.

Each PS/2 trader workstation supports two color screens. Color can be used to enhance services that are normally displayed in monochrome. Each screen displays up to 80 columns and 25 lines so that two TOPIC pages may be viewed at once.

The RDXII workstation uses "soft" keys whose function varies according to the service being accessed. Traders can keep track of the current function of each key by looking at the control window in the lower right hand corner of the screen.

A trader can call up single or multiple pages from the same or different services by typing a user-defined keyword.

RDXII provides gateway software for the ISE's CRS-LYNX record-based digital services and for three page-based digital feeds -- Reuters RDCDF, Telerate TDPF (formerly known as SOP) and the ISE's TOPICLINE.

CRS-LYNX is the only elementized digital product currently handled by RDXII but gateway software for other ticker feeds from Europe and North America is reportedly under development.

The CRS-LYNX feeds are delivered over two physical leased lines. One line carries Tradeline (trade and volume reports), Hotline (best bid and offer prices, called "touch" prices in London) and LTOline (London Traded Options bid, offer and trade prices). The other transmits Marketline (all marketmaker bid and offer quotes). Both lines can be connected to a single gateway processor and can operate at speeds of up to 19.2 kbps.

RDXII features software for three value-added servers, two of which support the CRS-LYNX gateway. The Ticker Page Server allows viewable pages to be assembled from record-based digital feeds such as CRS- LYNX. These pages are defined using a color monitor attached to the System Management Center.

The Ticker Monitor Server is used to create a customized scrolling ticker for each workstation. Parameters for the ticker can be selected by individual users or by the System Management Center. Users can set upper and lower price limits for up to 10 securities. When the limits are hit, a message is sent to the relevant workstation.

The Composite Page Server allows users to create custom pages using information from the page-based services and the output from the Ticker Page Server. Composite pages are defined using the System Management Center.