In Pursuit of SaaS-iness
Jul 28th
A lot has been written and debated about the merits and demerits of a SaaS based engagement of an IT vendor across various industries. Specific to Mobility solutions in the finance and brokerage industry here is something that we felt obliged to put forth.
Picture this:
-There are more than 6 leading Mobile Operating systems.
- Around 2400 form factors.
- Each Mobile OS has multiple versions and newer ones are being introduced regularly.
Fragmentation is here to stay – Differentiation being the key reason.
At this point in time it would suffice to point out the obvious – the mobile market is constantly evolving at break neck speed. It is one of the fastest growing markets and mobile companies are leaving no stone unturned to differentiate themselves and garner as much share of this seemingly ceiling free market. The advent of applications has markedly changed the game in this space. Phones are no longer being bought for ‘calls’ and ‘messaging’, rather for the exciting and limitless possibilities that applications provide to a user at the palm of his / her hand, on the go.
Having said this, now let’s explore what companies may be thinking.
It is indeed in this kind of a dynamic and exciting market place, the true benefits of a SaaS model surfaces to the fore. Today, to develop a comprehensive mobile trading or a mobile banking application, companies are considering shelling out anywhere between a $ 100K to Half a Million! This, just to create on one device. Presuming that the world economy was back on its feet and booming , companies are able to afford this kind of a spend, almost sure of recovering the costs in no time. Still does it make any sense at all? They then spend additional amounts for upgrades, maintenance, newer devices etc. Why?
To borrow from a cliché – Change is the only thing permanent – hence SaaS. Companies operating on this model have managed to disrupt existing business practices and emerged as forward thinking partners of choice.
With these known facts it is not surprising to witness more companies opening up to the idea of engaging an IT partner that operates on a SaaS model.
Consider the following benefits:
- Zero capital Expenditure.
- Pay only for what you use.
- The very DNA of the model allows for it to be the fastest time to market.
- Most agile in adapting to changes.
- With the inclusion of a Cloud Compute package, negligible server infrastructure cost.
- No more mundane ‘change management’ strategies or black-out periods.
- Adapt on the move, running.
- Greater involvement, engagement and commitment of the vendor / partner.
- Least amount of interference with company’s IT functioning. Core competency gains greater mind-space.
- Scale up and down on demand – based on traffic and content
- Save cost on running minimum number of servers during non-traffic hours.
Being improperly forward or bold is what the dictionary describes as being Sassy. Maybe it’s time.
MarketSimplified at SIFMA’s Tech expo – Mobility and Cloud are here to stay and show the way…
Jun 28th
June 22, 2010 – the first day at SIFMA’s tech expo at The Hilton New York was one marked with a lot of excitement and apprehension. Apprehension because we were scheduled to present to a potentially large audience on a topic “Co-Create: Innovate: Engage – Mobility Solutions leveraging the Cloud” alongside Amazon at the Solutions Centre. Being pitted against a talk by Microsoft at one end and Citrix Solutions at the other during the same time slot, we weren’t too sure of the attendance of interested souls to our presentation room, and it also being one of the first few presentations to kick start the solutions centre presentations for the expo, we didn’t have much time advertising our slot.
Much to our pleasant surprise, when the time for our presentation neared at 11:15 AM, the room started filling in with curious minds and at about 11:25 AM we saw the room nearly full. A tall achievement, we felt, especially when this was just our second year at SIFMA. As Vinod, Praveen and Peter went on to propagate our Co-Create model, it slowly started sinking in that we were witnessing a change. A change in erspectives, a change in ideologies, a change in finding solutions… a change that was largely spurred by the realisation settling in with the financial services industry that mobility and cloud computing are here to stay.
As the day progressed, our booth was flocked with representatives from brokerage companies across asset classes, wealth management companies, management companies, independent financial advisors, system integrators, journalists, telecom operators and many other technology vendors. For most, the stark necessity of embracing mobility was already etched in their minds. It was our Co-Creation via the Software as a Service model, the Zero Capital Expense model and our cross mobile strategy that intrigued them.
The response and traffic that our booth received, in a way also reflected the mood at the expo this year. People were much more solution oriented and optimistic. Bigger speakers from IBM and CISCO spoke about the next gen of technological innovations in the financial services industry coming by via mobility and cloud computing. Something we have very strongly been propagating since our inception. It was rather heartening to witness that the entire industry was realising the same.
What we definitely take back from this year’s expo is the immense response that we have received and the belief that the path that we created a couple of years back is right on track in understanding the industry needs as a whole, the direction the industry wishes to take and most importantly catering to the same in the most innovative and beneficial manner.
Come this year, our mobile platform is well placed to deliver solutions for banks, wealth management companies and independent financial advisors.
Market Simplified at SIFMA Tech Expo
Jun 28th
Market Simplified’s recent participation at the SIFMA conference held between 22-24 of June 2010, was well attended.
Here are excerpts from Yahoo Finance which carried our Press Release:
Mobile Trading Platform Market Leader MarketSimplified to Showcase Next-Gen Cloud Hosted Financial Mobile Apps at SIFMA’s Tech Expo
CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–MarketSimplified Inc, a provider of Mobile Trading Platforms will announce the next generation of Cloud hosted mobile apps at SIFMA’s Financial Services Technology Expo in New York. This year at the expo MarketSimplified will present on a topic seeking to unveil and explore the Co-Creation model by providing Mobility Solutions leveraging the Cloud that they are currently propagating. (June 22 @ The Hilton, New York, 11:15 AM – 12:15 PM).
Within a span of one year, MarketSimplified has already partnered and deployed Mobile Trading Applications to 5 of the Top 10 brokerages in the US among others. Currently its footprint spans across various geographies including US, India, Singapore and the Middle East.
Marc Prosser, Chief Marketing Officer of FXCM stated, “
Launching a mobile trading application was a major decision as we did not have clear visibility into infrastructure that would be required to support our clients. We had to have a scalable solution that would be able to support the activity of tens of thousands of clients on day one and MarketSimplified was able to provide us with this platform. The added benefit of working with a mobile expert like MarketSimplified is that they are focused on adapting their offering to changes in the market. They quickly allow us to release updates that clients are requesting to enhance our mobile offering.
“FXCM’s mobile trade station II is an extension of the desk-top platform and enables clients to trade the currency market 24 hours a day 7 days a week. FXCM is one of the largest currency brokers with over 150,000 live accounts traded through the platforms offered currently with substantial number of clients on the mobile platform.”
MarketSimplified’s key value propositions include:
* Mobile trading platform at a Zero Capital Expense model
* A model that provides this Software as a Service (SaaS) using FIX / API
* Across all Mobile Operating Systems, MIDs (like iPad)
* Zero CAPEX on server infrastructure using Elastic Cloud Compute.
Speaking about their experience and journey since last year, Venkat Rangan – Co-founder & CEO, MarketSimplified says,
There is a greater sense of realization and acceptance amongst brokerages on the potential that an aggressive Mobile Strategy holds in ultimately affecting their revenues. With no control over the device that their end customer chooses, brokerages are fast realizing the need to have a Mobile strategy partner who would develop and deploy the application that is compatible on every new Mobile device and Operating System introduced without having to divert from their core competence. Coupled with the benefits of Cloud Computing, we have been able to scale up our client’s incremental transactions and customer base without charging them a penny
MarketSimplified native applications operate on more than six major smartphone operating systems including iPhone, Blackberry, Windows, Android, and Palm Pre. For more information visit www.marketsimplified.com
MarketSimplified will be showcasing its offerings at SIFMA’s Financial Services Technology Expo this year at The Hilton New York, Exhibit Hall 2 – Booth 2500 between June 22nd and 24th.”
Market Simplified teams up with Amazon at SIFMA Tech Expo
Jun 18th
Is the case for Mobile Financial Applications fool proof? With already existing complexities in this industry, is there a simpler way?
The rising popularity and usage of mobile applications in the financial services industry is paving way to opportunities never seen before. Be it CRM tools on mobile, mobility solutions for financial advisors, banking transactions on mobile or mobile trading that gives trading opportunities on the go, we are seeing the advent of newer business models solely based on mobility and path breaking strategies that seek to solve many issues that this industry has been facing and more importantly newer avenues are opening up to tap this world of possibilities a mobile devise offers. But is it that simple?
Newer devises are being launched almost every other week. To top it, Mobile OS fragmentation is here to stay and is infact on the rise.
There will never be any control over the choice of mobile devise at the hands of a customer.
In such a situation,
- How does a financial services company rationalize its mobile strategy?
- How much budget does it need to allocate to benefit from the opportunities so provided?
- Is it actually affordable to go with a cross mobile strategy?
- How does it create a unique user experience and gain customer stickiness?
- Will the mobile strategy partner be able to deploy solutions in time?
- Should it just try and develop the technology in-house?
- What is the ‘right’ mobile strategy?
Teaming up with Amazon at this year’s Financial Services Tech expo organised by SIFMA for a presentation discussion on ‘Mobility Solutions Leveraging Cloud’, MarketSimplified Inc. shall seek to address just these issues and more. To attend the presentation and know more about Mobility solutions for the financial services industry, pls note the following:
Event: SIFMA’s Financial Services Technology Expo
Venue for the presentation: Solutions Center, The Hilton New York
Date : June 22, 2010 (11:15 AM – 12:15 PM)
MarketSimplified Booth : Booth Number 2500, Ballroom Exhibit level 2 , The Hilton New York (June 22-24, 2010)
Free Registration details: www.sifma.org/techexpopass
Based in Chicago, MarketSimplified is a subsidiary of the Indian firm INXS Technologies, Ltd. The company’s customer base expands beyond the United States to India, Singapore, and Dubai. Being the largest deployed mobile trading platform across the globe, a variety of brokerage firms such as TD AMERITRADE, optionsXpress, FXCM, PFGBest, ChoiceTrade, tradeMONSTER, and IIFL are all clients of MarketSimplified.
Do visit www.marketsimplified.com to know more or mail kunal@marketsimplified.com .
Catch Amazon Web Service’s case study of Market Simplified
Mar 30th
Some extracts are below; the full text can be read here
The MarketSimplified SaaS model enables financial institutions to use cutting-edge applications over the internet and mobile devices. Brokerage clients using MarketSimplified solutions access account details, real-time quotes, market data, news and technical analysis tools using smart phones and other mobile devices. 
The ability to offer all these capabilities in a SaaS delivery model is not a trivial task and requires a reliable computing infrastructure. In addition, disseminating real-time market data to thousands of smart phones and mobile devices with quick response times requires scalable compute power and workflow coordination. Not only does this need experienced personnel to configure, deploy, and manage the infrastructure, but also demands a sizable monetary investment. The capital expenditure model slows down projects from being lifted off the ground and the overwhelming cost factor makes most projects not even see the light of day.
Marc Prosser, Chief Marketing Officer of FXCM stated, “Launching a mobile trading application was a major decision as we did not have clear visibility into More >
Blackberry Developer Day
Mar 30th
A Team of eight from Market Simplified attended the Blackberry Developer Day program held on 17th March 2010 in Bangalore…here are some highlights of the same.
The first technical symposium “Blackberry Developer day” on 17 March 2010 by RIM, as a forum brought in Experts from RIM, Industry experts (CEO’s of some IT firms), developers, and Media persons at the Taj Residency, Bangalore (Bengaluru) to discuss the key issues in app development, and network with other mobile app developers and marketers.
The Day was split in to six sessions spaced by tea and lunch Breaks.
The key speakers included Mr. Hossam Bahlool, Director Platform product Management RIM, Under the technical session our team heard from speakers, Mr. Larry McDonough and Alan Wong, who gave an overview of the Blackberry Architecture, API and tools. Larry spoke about how they were trying to analyze the user needs and convey the same to
Mrs. Annie Mathew Head of Alliances India, gave the welcome address, spoke about the alliance program and its benefits to the Partners. She urged developers here to create a technical forum online. There was a session for the CEO of Endeavour software, speaking More >
New Segment of “Mobile Traders” in the Making
Mar 23rd
“Day traders” were born during the frenetic Internet boom of the late 1990s when brokerages brought the stock market into every Internet-equipped home and office through online trading services. Today another entirely new segment is emerging silently, that of gen-y “Mobile Traders” – they’re young, they’re empowered, they enjoy actively managing their investments and mobile phones are their most popular choice of access. According to the Economist, there are over 4 Billion mobile phone users worldwide.
Just as, at the helm of the Internet boom, brokerages like Etrade, OptionsXpress built their billion dollar business by offering only online trading, by 2011 we could witness the emergence of brokerages that record the same volume of trades as the above online brokerages purely through mobile trading.
Interestingly, a survey from Scottrade found that “the idea of investing being fun is increasingly gaining traction within the generation – 35 percent of Gen Y invests because they find it enjoyable, up from 27 percent last year”. It further found that Gen Y investors (born 1983-1991, ages 18-26) are increasingly involved in the market and are changing perceptions of investing and that young investors are the most likely to manage their own investments and to describe investing as “fun and interesting“.
Another survey from Accelerant Research quoted “Gen Y demographic hooked on mobile bill pay and banking, proving that Baby Boomers have truly slipped into the unhip generation they thought they’d never be”.
The above surveys point to the rise of this new segment of “mobile traders” – mostly comprised of Gen Y – many of whom have discovered the stock markets from their mobile phones. This has become especially possible with the availability of a particularly user friendly mobile trading application such as what MarketSimplified offers.
In fact user friendly mobile trading platforms can increase trades originating from mobile devices. The following quote published in Barrons 2010 brokerage review reflects this phenomenon ...”…the mobile application, OX Mobile, is well designed, with streaming real-time data, charts, and watch lists, and stock, options, and futures trading. CEO David Fisher says, “We found that customers are doing significantly more trading through these phone-based apps than we thought possible.”
Clearly, for brokerages, More >
With Mobile Trading MarketSimplified Triples Revenue and Customers in 2009
Feb 8th
World’s #1 mobile trading platform provider tripled revenue, tripled customer count, announced new signed clients and extended trading coverage for Palm Pre & Android
Chicago, IL. – February 08, 2010 – MarketSimplified, Inc., a provider of cloud hosted SaaS mobile trading solutions designed for brokerages and financial institutions, today announced that the company experienced record growth in 2009, including tripling revenues and direct customers over the course of the year with major equities, forex and futures brokerages worldwide now using MarketSimplified Cloud Hosted SaaS Mobile Trading solution. MarketSimplified also expanded device coverage to Palm Pre & Google Nexus One(Android Phone) trading applications that works across multiple wireless devices.
For the latest information follow MarketSimplified on the Web at:
* Essential MarketSimplified Brief(pdf)
* MarketSimplified Blog(this)
* MarketSimplified on Twitter
* MarketSimplified on Facebook
About MarketSimplified
MarketSimplified is best known in the U.S Brokerage Industry for its 6 week Cloud Hosted SaaS Mobile Middleware solution that offers one simple zero cost SaaS model and eradicates the need to deal with More >
Features to make the world a better place
Jan 16th
This movie requires Flash Player 9
Atleast..make a huge difference to the mobile trading experience
Features such as Reversal Scanner, Gainers Losers, Technical Events (Bearish /Bullish), Alerts are bundled along with mobile trading applications.. These help trader squickly make that decision to get into a new opportunity or to get out of one, taking profits.
Until now, most mobile applications did not posses high processing speeds thus have been limited in power features that could be computed right on the phone, however with the entry of cloud computing, and application such as a marketsimplified, that entirely uses cloud to deliver infinite computing power and resources to even an tiny 200Mhz Mobile device !!
More such features are in the works from Market Simplified. More >