Sun Microsystems has extended its family of Intel Xeon-based Sun Fire servers with two new offerings for High Performance Computing (HPC), Cloud/Web 2.0 and back office computing workloads, including a 1U server for HPC workloads and an expandable 2U enterprise-class system. The Sun Fire X2250 and Sun Fire X4250 servers, powered by one or two dual- or quad-core Intel Xeon processors 5200 or 5400 series, run a variety of operating systems, including Solaris 10, Linux and Windows.

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Insurance and investment group LV= has signed a deal with Target Group under which the Cardiff-based software and processes provider will take control of the data management of LV=’s existing loan operation for a period of three years.

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Neonet has combined market data for traditional exchanges with that for multilateral trading facilities (MTFs) via its new Consolidated European Order Book Offering. According to the vendor, it is aiming to create a transparent view over European trading.

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Barclays Global Investors (BGI) has appointed three new executives to the Asian region, promoted two staff members to senior positions and relocated one from Europe. BGI has appointed Brent Kao as client director for Taiwan, Tan Puay Lit as client director for Singapore and William Chow as portfolio manager for iShares Asia ex-Japan.

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As part of its continuing expansion in the Asia Pacific region, global provider of software for capital markets Coexis has hired ex- Lehman Brothers operations head Ian Stephenson as head of operations in the region. Based in Singapore, Stephenson will initially focus on managing local implementations.

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NZX has appointed Yvonne Davie head of business of its subsidiary FundSource, which specialises in analysis of managed funds.

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Leading Nordic investment bank Carnegie is leveraging Intel Xeon 5300 processors to create a virtualised environment, consolidating 140 legacy servers down to just 16 in its data centre. The benefits include increased flexibility, improved backup and significant operational expenses.

Find out more at Intel fasterFS.

By Allan Mertner, Tideway Systems

As one of Europe’s most active financial centers, London has been in the news lately due to the shrinking datacentre real estate available to support countless large financial institutions. Experts now estimate that the vacancy rate in London’s co-location facilities will approach 0% by 2009. And London is not alone – Tier1 Research reports that in 2006, global datacentre demand rose nearly 13% percent while facility supply rose only 4%.

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Network World carried this useful article on Fidelity Investments’ plans to expand its use of virtualisation across its datacentres.

Interesting timing of this, given it’s not been a great week for proponents of that technology, in the wake of VMware’s major snafu on Tuesday when users worldwide saw their virtualisation systems stop working properly due to a bug in VMware’s licensing code.

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Tata Capital has signed a memorandum of understanding with Mitsubishi UFJ Securities (MUS) to establish a basis of cooperation in a wide range of strategic business areas. This includes cross border investment banking, the global sales of Indian equities and the enhancement of Tata Capital’s IT infrastructure for trading services.

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Korea Exchange Bank (KEB), Korea’s largest foreign exchange bank, has decided to extend the rollout of Mantas AML, part of the risk and analytics offering from i-flex solutions, from its Korean operations to its international operations in order to conduct global risk analysis and monitoring.

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New Star Asset Management has appointed Kanise Chan in Hong Kong as associate director for Greater China. She will be in charge of the firm’s sales efforts in Hong Kong and will be responsible for developing new opportunities in Taiwan.

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Patsystems has completed development work on a solution for the OCBC Securities Private Limited’s (OCBC Securities) futures trading system, expanding the broking firm’s system capabilities, product offerings and trading connectivity for the futures market.

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The Australian Securities Exchange has achieved an increase in annual net profit of 16.9% for the 2008 financial year. Despite the downturn in the global economy, Australia’s primary stock exchange says it is cautiously optimistic about its prospects over the medium term.

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Chinese offshore software development company and IT provider VanceInfo Technologies has entered into an agreement via one of its subsidiaries to purchase a 33% stake in Link Result, a provider of IT outsourcing services in China.

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PIC Solutions, a credit risk management consultancy in the Middle East and Africa, has expanded its client coverage in Pakistan by appointing Azam Razzaq as a dedicated senior relationship manager to service Karachi and Lahore.

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Global agency broker Liquidnet is understood to be in a phase of testing with a number of its clients prior to full launch of a European trading desk in the near future. Whilst no specific date has been set for a go live date, soft testing was being carried out this August, according to Liquidnet Europe’s head John Barker.

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Platform Computing has released VM Orchestrator (VMO) 4, the next version of its virtual environment management product for the enterprise datacentre. VMO 4 optimises resource utilisation, availability, and power consumption for virtualised environments running Citrix Systems’ XenServer software (support for other virtualisation offerings is coming, the company says).

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Financial Information Technology Consulting & Publishing Company Continues Global Expansion

London – August 13, 2008 - A-Team Group (www.a-teamgroup.com), specialists in market research, strategic consulting and publishing in financial information technology, has hired Virginie O’Shea as an editor for A-Team publications. In this role, Ms. O’Shea will play a vital role in editing Reference Data Review, MiFID Monitor, and Asia Markets IT, and will contribute to A-Team Insight Quarterly magazine. She comes to A-Team with years of journalistic experience.

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The operator of Asia’s third largest stock market, Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing (HKEx), has posted its first drop in quarterly profit in three years, with a decline in net income of 6% on last year’s figures for the second quarter.

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