News

Sustaining Members

Dyalog

Dyalog acquires Causeway Graphical Systems Ltd

Causeway is a household name in the world of APL software programming. For more than a decade the tools developed by the company have been used by software developers in a multitude of software applications over a broad range of platforms. The tools include: RainPro graphics engine – also known as SharpPlot for the Windows.Net platform, NewLeaf report formatter, and CausewayPro framework for Rapid Graphical User Interface (GUI) development. All will be incorporated into Dyalog for Windows from Version 11.1 – planned for release later this year. Dyalog confirms that the price structure will remain unchanged despite the implementation of the additional tools in version 11.1.

Founder of Causeway, Adrian Smith, is recognised in the worldwide array language community as a visionary systems architect and master toolsmith. Adrian will continue to work as chief architect on the Causeway product line, particularly with a focus to design further enhancements. Jonathan Manktelow has joined Dyalog as a full time developer.

Managing Director of Dyalog Ltd, Gitte Christensen, says “We’re extremely pleased to welcome the Causeway team onboard. We gain additional developer resources particularly for combining the use of Dyalog with components written in C#, something which is of great value as we continue to work towards a seamless integration of Dyalog with the Microsoft.Net platform. We’re also given a unique opportunity to take forward excellent products without additional cost to our customers hence making them available to many more users. Additionally, Dyalog is taking ownership of the APL-to-C# Translator developed by Causeway as well as the accompanying SharpArrays array library for the Microsoft.Net platform.”

Dyalog is currently not planning to develop the APL-to-C# translator technology into a general tool for deployment of APL applications. However, the company believes that the technology is very useful for customers who wish to produce fully-managed components from APL source code. The translator will therefore be made available on a per-project basis with Adrian Smith providing consultancy, development and support.

Adrian Smith comments, “I know that it is Dyalog’s aim to continue to build an even more complete and robust development environment, and integrating the Causeway tools is a big step in this direction. Dyalog can provide the professional marketing and support which the products deserve and I can now dedicate more time to designing and coding as part of the excellent group-dynamic that characterises Dyalog Ltd.”

Dyalog ’07 – a taste of the USA

After having held the Annual Dyalog User Group Conference in Europe for the past few years, we feel that we should take the event to the USA this year. We hope that this will allow many more of our US-based users to join us at the conference. We also hope that the slightly longer flight will not discourage our faithful European delegates from joining us again this year.

We have found a lovely venue at the Lakeside Hotel & Conference Center in Princeton and we’re in the process of putting together the preliminary draft programme.

If you have any special wishes for topics which should be covered during the conference, please send us your input already now so we can try and work it into the presentation plan. Likewise if you have a topic you would like to present to the Dyalog Community, please let us know as soon as possible so we can schedule accordingly.

We are planning a 2-day conference with a training day at each end. This means that it will be possible to attend training on Sunday, 30 September and Wednesday, 3 October.

The Conference proper will run Monday and Tuesday with our usual lively dinner party Monday evening.

Like last year, we plan to run two streams for part of the time on both days.

Country life

We have always believed that a development department ought to have sea view – as it enhances the creativity to have something nice to look at.

However, when you are looking for new premises in Hampshire, UK, that is more difficult to achieve. Usually, the closest to water we get is the odd puddle on the road after a heavy rainfall.

APLers in apple country

Instead of the sea we found a place with a view of a large wheat field, where the wind creates ripples just like the movement of the waves and where a multitude of birds and animals can be spotted.

In March Dyalog moved to new premises in the small village of Bramley, giving it two reasons for fame. The other is the Bramley apple, which is claimed to be better than Granny Smith, Braeburn, Golden Delicious (and everything else you can come up with) for apple crumble, apple pie, baked apple and apple sauce!

The village of Bramley is situated just off the A33, which connects Reading and Basingstoke.

We now occupy South Barn, in a complex built recently. But in keeping with “old” style it sports character features such as exposed beams. It is significantly larger than our previous offices, as we plan on staying here for many years, and still have room to expand the Dyalog team as the company continues its steady growth.

Everyone has now found their feet, the dedicated machine room is buzzing with a multitude of PCs and our meeting facilities are completed.

Kx Systems

Kx Welcomes New Customers

Announcing the latest additions to our growing list of leading global financial firms: The NYSE Group, Rand Merchant Bank (RMB International), and Detica.

Mac OS X Support for Kdb+

Kx has announced kdb+ database and application support for the Mac OS X operating system, which we demoed on a MacBook at Trade Tech Paris last month. Kx added Mac support in response to increasing requests from our developer community.

“As Apple continues to offer larger, faster servers built on Intel processors, the Macintosh is becoming an attractive alternative for financial institutions,” said Simon Garland, Kx CTO. “IT departments are looking for maintainable performance, and Macintosh servers are simple to administer. Kdb+ doesn’t need a raft of clusters and grids in order to deliver millisecond query response times. New customers are often surprised by how much they can accomplish using our software with a single processor.”

Kx expects the Macintosh option for kdb+ to appeal to leading financial firms not only for corporate servers but also because the Mac’s stable and easy-to-use development platform appeals to developers in the office and at home. “Many of our customers are trading globally 24×7, which means that growing numbers of developers using notebooks are going online to monitor applications and finish development from home or on the road. The Mac notebooks are ideal for that,” commented Garland.

The port to Mac OS X was straightforward, largely because Kx architected its kdb+ database and applications for easy portability to support new operating system versions quickly. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of kdb+ on Mac OS X are available now. In addition to Mac OS X, kdb+ supports Linux (any version), Windows, and Solaris.

See Kx at SIFMA (formerly SIA)

Please visit us at booth #1302 during the SIFMA Technology Management Exhibit in New York June 19-21. Kx is pleased to sponsor the SIFMA show guide.

New A-Team Research on Low Latency Architectures

A-Team’s report, “Faster than a Speeding Bullet – Low Latency Architectures and Building Blocks for Tomorrow’s Trading Applications,” explores the market dynamics that have driven low-latency requirements and reviews the technologies now being deployed. More information on A-Team research

The Cross-Asset Trading Challenge

Transaction Networks & Technologies has published Kx CTO Simon Garland’s article on new paradigms in trading assets among different classes, explaining how to manage the risks and avoid the pitfalls.