London Stock Exchange To Abandon Windows

BBCWatcher writes "Computerworld's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reports that the London Stock Exchange is abandoning its Microsoft Windows-based trading platform: 'Anyone who was ever fool enough to believe that Microsoft software was good enough to be used for a mission-critical operation had their face slapped this September when the LSE's Windows-based TradElect system brought the market to a standstill for almost an entire day .... Sources at the LSE tell me to this day that the problem was with TradElect ...'"

Comments

Not Windows' fault

[TheThiefMaster]

It's not Windows vs Linux.

It's TradElect vs MarketPrizm, which happen to run on Windows vs Linux respectively.

TradElect never managed its performance promises, which suggests lies from marketing and / or programmers unable to deliver what they were asked to. Despite what the Linux fanboys love to say, inferior software isn't Windows-only, and does exist on Linux too.

This could easily have been the other way around, ditching Linux and a shit piece of trades software for Windows and a good bit of trades software. The OS is irrelevant here, except to fanboys of either side.

Re:Not Windows' fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. We run 90% of our mission critical software at work on Windows and don't have problems...but have moved to Linux to run remote monitoring software. Should I make a post saying we're abandoning the horrible crappy Windows market for Linux? That would be just as incorrect of a statement.

Re:Not Windows' fault

[MyDixieWrecked]

It's not Windows vs Linux.

You say it's not Windows' fault and I agree--it wasn't an OS problem (per se), but rather an application issue. In actuality, it's Microsoft's fault; the application was developed in joint by Accenture AND Microsoft. With the requirements not being met that it be a high-performance, real-time application and the fact that they were unable to deliver even with MS being involved made them lose faith in the company and their products (.NET, Windows Server, SQL server).

I'd say that if MS wasn't involved in the development of the app that it's possible that they would scrap the app rather than the OS/framework, but if I was in that position, I'd do the same thing.

It's possible that they also look at the chicago stock exchange and the NYSE and the fact that their apps are running on Linux and have decided to move to a proven, successful system.

Re:Not Windows' fault

[Idaho]

It's not Windows vs Linux.

It's TradElect vs MarketPrizm, which happen to run on Windows vs Linux respectively.

Then again, TradElect was written by Microsoft and Accenture, so Microsoft where heavily involved in this project themselves - not just from the perspective of Windows only.

In addition, they touted this in their "Get The Facts" anti-Linux campaign, so I'm sorry, but pointing out this failure and blaming it on Microsoft (though perhaps not the Windows OS as such) is fair game IMO.

I mean, if a large and well-known consulting firm together with Microsoft themselves can't make a Windows-based framework perform, who can?

Re:Not Windows' fault

[ForexCoder]

It's not Windows vs Linux.

No, it's Microsoft vs Linux.

Microsoft had full control over the stack of tools they used (Windows Server 2003, C#/.NET, Sql Server 2000, I believe) and they invested a lot of resources, both technical and marketing, into making this system run. It was suppose to show that Microsoft software could handle this kind of system as well or better then *nix. And it was a failure.

See Get the Facts for more details.

Re:Not Windows' fault

[Tom]

The OS is irrelevant - every modern server OS performs well enough to support sanely written software and sanely designed infrastructure. Only the people living in the past and the ones having no clue will argue otherwise.

Or the ones who don't know what they're talking about, like you.

This is one of the main stock exchanges in the world. Billions of dollars of trade rely on microsecond-precise handling. There are whole companies (and not small ones) that do stuff like inter-exchange trading which is the buzzword for "buy for $1,5678 in London, sell for $1,5679 in Tokyo before anyone else does and the prices equalize". These are companies that are willing to put down five to six digit sums per month if they can get an Internet connection with a few milliseconds less latency.

For this environment, you don't need "sanely managed". Any delay whatsoever in the transactions is bad. Any time a transaction can not be handled properly due to delay, queues or any fucking other reason, one of your traders is unhappy. And you don't want unhappy traders when they are your business.

are you fucking blind ?

[rs232]

In the development, roll-out, and implementation processes, Microsoft worked closely with the London Stock Exchange