BUY-SIDE TECHNOLOGY AWARDS: Best buy-side technology provider for 2010: SunGard

SunGard, adjudged the winner of the final category of this year’s awards, is in good company: Advent Software, Linedata Services, and Eagle Investment Systems are past recipients of this award, scooping the category in 2007, 2008 and 2009, respectively. While the Buy-Side Technology Awards are designed to highlight the winners in each of the 22 categories, this category is slightly different—back in 2007, Stewart Eisenhart and Victor Anderson created a category that acknowledged not only a vendor’s long-term track record and commitment to servicing the buy side, but also its versatility serving a number of areas across the buy side, preferably with front-, middle and back-office offerings.

This year, SunGard fits that bill perfectly: It entered no fewer than six categories—accounting (SunGard Asset Arena), direct market access (SunGard Fox Trader), compliance (SunGard Asset Arena Compliance and SunGard Protegent PTA), EMS (SunGard Valdi EMS), newcomer (SunGard Fox Spotlight), and performance (SunGard Fox River Agent Smith)—without coming out on top in any.

But its performances in the accounting and compliance categories, in particular, are noteworthy—SunGard picked up a number of votes in both categories and came within a single vote of matching Advent’s Geneva score in the best fund accounting category, which would have resulted in deadlock and the panel being forced to consult reference clients in order to separate the two offerings.

The six products listed above are only a snapshot of the wide array of technologies that make up SunGard’s stable—a stable that in all likelihood will produce future category winners in the Buy-Side Technology Awards. —VBA

JUDGE'S COMMENT
This award has been a long time coming for SunGard, the epitome of the “all singing, all dancing” vendor, with more products in more areas than any other sell- or buy-side vendor—bar none.  

SUNGARD REACTION
“We are delighted that SunGard was awarded the best buy-side technology provider of the year in recognition of the depth and breadth of our solutions that service the buy-side industry—our buy-side solutions suite includes SunGard’s APT, Asset Arena, FastVal, Fox River Execution, Front Arena, InvesTier, Market Map, Monis, Protegent, Valdi, the SunGard Global Network (SGN), and VPM. SunGard is represented by a number of key buy-side solutions for risk, pricing, valuation, investment accounting, market data management and visualization, algorithmic trading, high- and low-touch execution and compliance. Clinching the top spot in Buy-Side Technology’s annual technology awards highlights SunGard’s footprint in the buy-side industry and the strength of our buy-side solutions suite. SunGard is committed to helping our buy-side customers stay ahead of changing regulations, as well as investor and industry demands, by helping them improve transparency and efficiency so they can grow their business while managing risks and costs.”
—Jim Ashton, divisional CEO, financial systems business, SunGard