UK software developer Open Trade Technologies Ltd, traditionally a messaging and data feed display systems vendor, has branched out into integration. Its product, Orbita, will take on BEA Systems and Tibco, but Open Trade’s managing director Ian Arundel believes that the company’s experience combined with its object-based, proprietary messaging platform, will enable it to become a contender.
The Harrow-based company is intent on taking advantage of the booming demand for transaction processing. Whereas firms used to be able to run messages through systems in batches either hourly or daily, with current internet trading competitiveness there is a trend toward real-time processing, a market which could be worth as much as $50bn by 2003, Arundel claims.
Open Trade sees partnerships as the key to winning a wider market for the product. Orbita already contains technology from outside the company, namely an object request broker from Hitachi Europe Ltd, which has been a strategic development partner.
Open Trade says it will look to its traditional channel partners, Compaq and Sun, to go to the US market in the latter half of 2000. The software will cost around 1000 pounds ($1640) per user for a 100-seat system, and Arundel expects contract sizes to be between 100,000 and 500,000 pounds ($163,000 to $819,000)
