Avanade's Executive Discusses Issues Affecting Prime Brokers at Windows in Financial Services Roundtable

Business Wire, June 25, 2007

NEW YORK -- In a recent Windows in Financial Services (WFS) Advisory Council roundtable, George Lipsker, Finance Services Industry Director, North Americas at Avanade, Inc.(www.avanade.com), said "...it is a two-edged sword in that prime brokers want to lower the cost and complexity of on-boarding new clients but by reducing complexity, they're facilitating the funds' ability to move and switch, creating essentially a commodity service office. That may be part of the reticence to make further investments."

The adoption of technology has brought and continues to bring dramatic changes to the shape, size and scope of the buy-and-sell relationship from the front office to the back office. In the front office, keeping up, interpreting and making faster and better trading decisions is unlikely to get any easier. The influx of trading technology has led many to question the role of the trader.

Lipsker continued, saying, "Their build mentality is also based on an environment with little regulation. As scrutiny increases, development costs will rise. The amount of infrastructure they have to build in order to insure compliance with these regulatory protocols will increase, making them more receptive to outsourcing."

Current infrastructures and operating systems need to adapt to the changes and focus on the fundamentals of data management, client data, reference data, real-time data and the overall architecture of the enterprise's infrastructures. Given the highly fragmented complexity of today's marketplace, regulatory pressures, proliferation of investment products and the pressure for operational efficiency and risk management, this is no place for the faint of heart.

The high-level roundtable event held in April in New York City brought together leading industry analysts, executives from co-sponsors Microsoft and Avanade and senior executives from Citi and UBS.

In addition to Avanade's Lipsker, participants included: James Leman, managing director, principal, Westwater Corp.; Larry Tabb, CEO and founder, TABB Group; Neil Tandon, head of product development, prime brokerage, UBS; Chuck Allen, managing director and CTO, equity finance, prime broker, Citi; Craig Saint-Amour, director, capital markets industry solutions, Microsoft Corporation; and Sang Lee, co-founder and managing partner, Aite Group. The roundtable was moderated by WFS contributing editor, Martin Rabkin, CEO at martinrabkinink.

The next roundtable discussion focusing on the challenges and trends in reference data, co-sponsored again by Avanade and Microsoft is scheduled for late July and will be published in the fall issue of Windows in Financial Services (www.windowsfs.com).

About Windows in Financial Services

Windows in Financial Services (WFS) reports on Microsoft technologies in the financial enterprise used by leading capital markets, banking and insurance firms. Published four times a year and supplemented monthly with an e-newsletter, WFS is dedicated solely to covering Microsoft in the financial services marketplace in North America, describing the latest trends, products and applications of technology solutions offered by Microsoft and its partners. Every issue, read by more than 14,500 financial executives and pass-along readers, includes in-depth profiles, product highlights, interviews, case studies, forums and roundtables describing how applications developed with Microsoft technologies provide real world IT solutions for financial services firms. For more information, visit http://www.windowsfs.com.