[KLUG Advocacy] Linux on Wall Street... and maybe elsewhere, too

[Robert G. Brown]

On Monday morning, I wrote:
>A number of financial services firms are using Linux; many of them 
>are very closed mouthed about how it's employed, for a number of reasons.

The requests for me to go on have been sufficient for me to provide some
additional words along these lines....

Perhaps I overstate my case, it's not merely that Linux has been 
something these firms don't want to talk about, it's that they don't 
like to talk about ANY of the technologies that are used in evolving 
trading or other competitive strategies. The really successful tools
are the ones the firms do NOT talk about, the use and value of these 
technologies is worth billions of dollars to EACH FIRM that is in-
volved.

Linux has bestowed some real advantages on the players who have been
using it; and it has done well in environments where money is really
no object (consider pay-back times of 5 DAYS for a small SPARC server
or workstation). Up-time, reliability, and stable operation are not
desirable qualities during the trading day, they are REQUIRED. Some
trading desks are not inconvenienced by down-time or a reboot, they 
can conceivably be RUINED. We're not talking only about saving money
here, we're talking about placing a large part of the assets of the
business on the line, every day.

The use of ANY technology that gives one player the edge here is not 
going to become a bragging point for them. It is going to be so val-
uable that they will not want it seen as an advantage, so they clam
up about it.

Cat's Outta the bag! When everyone is employed nicely, a lot of stuff
is shrouded in non-disclosure agreements, but Wall Street and other 
money center financial services areas have undergone a lot of painful
and deep cutbacks in the last 16 months, and things become a kind of
open secret after a while. One of them is what technologies are really
helping some firms. Now Merrill has gotten rid of about 9000 people in
this time; we can't expect all of them to keep quiet, and they don't;
it's not so much that they are violating NDA's, but NDA's are limited
in coverage and in time, and people simply talk after a while, more so
if they like one of those technologies.

Linux has friends in financial services. There's a lot they can't say
or do about it; I know more than I can say right now, but I can say 
that Linux is well respected, not because it is free (which amuses some
people), but because it has what is needed to do the job at hand, to
an almost awe-inspiring degree.

I hope this helps, I can offer a little in the way of specific insight,
but I think this is a good start toward understanding the background...


							Regards,
							---> RGB <---