Moneyline Telerate Active8s Workstation

Moneyline Telerate has launched Telerate Active8, a high-end desktop data display application, officials at the company said last week.

Similar in concept to its Active1 predecessor, Telerate Active8 is an ActiveX-compliant container employing OLE technology. It allows users to retrieve, display and integrate multiple sources of financial news, information and commentary within a single framework.

This version connects to Reuters’ Triarch and TIB data distribution platforms and the Moneyline Trading Room System (MTRS), although the vendor plans to launch a standalone version in the third quarter this year.

Moneyline Telerate says that an open system is particularly useful for customers that have different platforms installed--which is often the case following mergers--but want a common front-end. Not only does this ease the movement of users within an organization, but it simplifies the support overhead and reduces a firm’s cost of ownership, says Doug Jeffrey, managing director for EMEA.

This lower cost of ownership is proving to be a major selling point for the service, which competes with Reuters, Bloomberg and Thomson Financial terminals. Over 60 firms globally are testing the desktop display.

One consultant familiar with the service says Active8 is a clever application that has the look and feel of Windows. It showcases the Telerate data in its best light, something that other market data vendors haven’t done, the consultant says.

Telerate Active8 has a Microsoft look that uses tabs, pop-ups and user forms familiar to users. It can be customized to any level of user requirement. For example, a trader can click on a price and prompt the retrieval of historical information for a chart, relevant economic indicators and related data from an internal database.

The service comes with packaged worksheets or users can create more sophisticated functionality by linking data and objects together with a visual linking tool.

Moneyline Telerate’s information includes data from BrokerTec, TradeWeb and Icap with coverage of over 200 exchanges globally.