Market Vision Readies PC Software For Buy Side Fueled By ISS Server

Market Vision Corp. is developing Microsoft Corp. Windows-based workstation display software that it is planning to market to money managers and sell-side sales traders. The new product--code-named Global Markets Page and scheduled for release in the first quarter of 1995--will be integrated with Investment Software Systems Inc.'s news engine. ISS, which allows Market Vision to resell its products as part of a licensing agreement it signed with the systems integrator some two years ago, is currently being wooed by Automatic Data Processing Inc.: ADP recently signed a letter of intent to purchase the Littleton, Mass.-based software vendor (IMT, Dec. 9).

According to a Market Vision official, Global Markets Page is an "object-brokered" front-end display system that will be "fully" Windows NT compatible when it is released to the general market. This official says that Market Vision's new product will initially be beta-tested at two to six client sites in January. Though he declines to specify all of the potential clients of Global Markets Page, the official confirms that the New York-based Ark Asset Management Co. will be one of the beta-test sites.

The official says that Market Vision will integrate Global Markets Page with the "news server" component of ISS News Analyst--ISS' flagship product. However, he says that although Market Vision will rely on ISS' news engine to provide users with access to a multiplicity of news feeds via the Global Markets Page product, ISS will not contribute to the development of Market Vision's workstation software.

"We're not using any front-end product from [ISS]. We've entirely built 100 percent of the front-end product.... The only thing we're using of theirs is their news server--the back end," the official says. "What ISS provides is a news engine.... [ISS] has written all of the news feedhandlers into their news database and then we display that in an integrated, fully objectized format through Global Markets Page."

Though the official says that Global Markets Page will not be jointly marketed by Market Vision and ISS, he says that ISS will have the right to resell it once it is released to the market. "Our intention has always been to work together--particularly since we are capitalizing on [ISS]' news portion," the official says.

However, an ISS spokesperson says that Global Markets Page will not be "cross-licensed" by ISS. "In the past, we have enjoyed some cross-licensing situations [with Market Vision, but] there are no current plans, nor do I believe there have been any discussions--with respect to a cross-licensing situation [for Global Markets Page]," the spokesperson says. "They currently have a license to resell our product as part of their offering. There's nothing new about that--that agreement is a couple of years old."

The spokesperson adds that ISS has not yet finalized any deal with ADP--the quote vendor whose interest in ISS has fueled speculation about the likely integration of ADP's FS Partner retail quote platform with ISS' ISS News Analyst service. ISS News Analyst, which runs on Unix servers, processes news from an array of providers, including Reuters, Thomson Financial Services Inc.'s First Call Corp., Knight-Ridder Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Washington News Services and Dow Jones Telerate's Dow Vision.

In addition to selling Global Markets Page to money managers, the Market Vision official says that Market Vision believes the product will also have a market among sell-side sales personnel and support staff who are "PC-driven."

The official adds that the ISS news database will be linked to Global Markets Page through Market Vision's so-called "applet" toolkit--a toolkit which he describes as "little bits of applications that work together in an object-brokered environment." Global Markets Page, the official says, is a "collection" of these so-called applets that incorporates all of Market Vision's front-end display capabilities--including "composite pages, page displays, graphs, alerts, quote windows and news."

What's more, the official says, Market Vision has developed Global Markets Page in accordance with Microsoft's standards for an object-brokered application. "This is both OLE 2 [ Object Linking and Embedding, version 2] and Com [Component Object Modules]-compliant. We're working closely with Microsoft on this so that we ensure compliance," the official says