QED Survey Finds Buy Side Ready to Buy, But When?
At 01 Apr 2004 12:38:56 in MDI-Market Research, MDI-News in Brief, Market Data Insight 
A survey published last month by portfolio management systems vendor QED Information Systems, found that almost 90% of the 34 firms surveyed considered an integrated system important to their overall business strategy. Encouragingly for QED, which stresses its low-maintenance, high-integration platform, Q2, 74% said they weren’t currently using such a solution. But the survey also underscored some of the realities of the current business environment. For one, 91% said that the majority of their 2003 technology budgets were spent on maintenance or incremental upgrades to their existing systems rather than on new implementations. Indeed, 80% said they hadn’t significantly updated or deployed a new portfolio management system in the past 12 months. Finally, 53% said they didn’t expect to update their system in the next 12 months. Of course, this could be a glass half full or half empty, depending on your viewpoint. QED vice president of sales, Keith Brodhead, also cites the long sales cycle for these systems, ranging from nine to 12 months.
