Before the Spin: Looking to 2004, Remember the Lesson of 2003: Innovate or Die

It’s a difficult task trying to capture in a nutshell what one year meant even if you narrow down that view to sell-side securities trading technology. Of course, the twin mantras of cost-cutting and total cost of ownership (TCO) come to mind--the wages of the sins of the prior decade.

Many of the firms and vendors that benefited from those sins spent the year preparing for the recovery, which, like Santa, exists and yet doesn’t. Over the past year, securities firms moved very cautiously when it