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Instant messaging (IM) has evolved beyond a simple one-to-one communication tool to become a dominant feature on the trader's desktop. For many firms, especially hedge funds, IM applications are considered mission-critical trading tools. Traders can now even add algorithms to their list of IM contacts, or buddy lists.

Wall Street & Technology
Lou Eccleston has joined Pivot Solutions as chairman and CEO. Eccleston will work to further Pivot's IMtrader buy-side network, which brings together instant messaging, information management, research and trading technology for institutional investors. Securities Industry News
Derivatives data and valuation specialist Markit Group of London has hired Jeff Gooch from Morgan Stanley as EVP and head of its portfolio valuations and trade processing businesses. Gooch, who has a strong operational background and is former European co-chair of the International Swaps & Derivatives Association's operations committee, was most recently Morgan Stanley's managing director and global co-head of fixed-income operations and global head of over-the-counter derivative operations. He spent 11 years with Morgan Stanley, serving as the firm's representative on the Markit board and as a member of the advisory board for the Reference Entity Database that Market owns. He also worked for eight years in Ernst & Young's financial services practice. Securities Industry News
Pivot Solutions, a developer of trading systems based on instant messaging (IM) technology, announced the appointment last week of Louis Eccleston as chairman and chief executive officer, replacing the company's founder, Furqan Nazeeri. Inside Market Data
Lou Eccleston, the new chief executive of US software vendor Pivot Solutions, has outlined plans to refocus the vendor as a broad provider of collaborative information solutions rather than just being known for its IMTrader messaging platform. Boston Business Journal
Pivot Solutions Inc. named Lou Eccleston as the company's new chairman and chief executive officer Tuesday.
Airbourne Village
Boston, MA – April 17, 2007 - Pivot Solutions, one of the fastest growing communications networks for institutional investors with its flagship IMTRADER network and platform, today announced the appointment of Lou Eccleston as Chairman and CEO. A seasoned financial executive who served in key management roles at Bloomberg L.P. and Thomson Financial, Eccleston is charged with further positioning Pivot Solutions and IMTRADER as the preferred network for communication and collaboration for institutional investors and their supporting firms, customers and partners.

finextra.com
Lou Eccleston, formerly of Bloomberg and Thomson Financial, has resurfaced as chairman and chief executive officer of Pivot Solutions, operator of the IMtrader buy-side network. The Boston Globe
Pivot Solutions Inc. said today that Lou Eccleston took over as chairman and chief executive yesterday, succeeding company founder Furqan Nazeeri.
bobsguide
Pivot Solutions, one of the fastest growing communications networks for institutional investors with its flagship IMTRADER network and platform, today announced the appointment of Lou Eccleston as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. A seasoned financial executive who served in key management roles at Bloomberg L.P. and Thomson Financial, Eccleston is charged with further positioning Pivot Solutions and IMTRADER as the preferred network for communication and collaboration for institutional investors and their supporting firms, customers and partners. Advanced Trading
Buy-side traders who use instant messaging to communicate with and route order flow to the sell-side community now can use IM to sweep crossing networks and dark pools. In February, IMTrader, the instant messaging network for brokers and fund managers, began allowing institutions to sweep electronic pools for hidden and visible liquidity by integrating its network with UNX's algorithmic technology. HedgeWorld
Buy-Side Technology
Utilising Instant Messaging (IM) technologies is not new to the buy side, although technologies that automatically translate IMs to FIX messages in real-time in order to convey trade-related data, are finding traction. BST investigates Pivot Solutions’ IMTRADER. Last week, IM TRADER, the instant messaging network for brokers and fund managers, began allowing institutions to sweep electronic pools for hidden and visible liquidity by integrating its network with UNX's algorithmic technology. Securities Industry News
Pivot Solutions has released a new version of IMTrader, its instant messaging network and trading system, that adds the ability to trade international equities with order completion using Pivot's patentpending IM-to-FIX technology. Jabber Inc. announced that its Jabber Extensible Communications Platform (Jabber XCP) has been integrated with the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace conferencing solution, allowing customers to launch integrated voice, video and Web conferences from the Jabber Messenger client. Hoping to tap into the explosive growth of instant messaging (IM), IBM Corp. has begun promoting an upgraded version of its Lotus Sametime software to Wall Street, beginning with an event last month in New York that it billed as "Real-Time, Right Now, Really Cool." "Leading-edge communication trends, such as transmitting trade orders via IM, are also popping onto the radar screen, propelling new solutions and creating demand for products like IMTRADER from Pivot Solutions of Boston, which captures IMs and turns them into compliant trades. "When we see something moving away from low-touch, via IMTRADER, we will send an alert message to the client. The buyside trader can decide whether to go to high-touch or leave it in," said Andrew Silverman, Goldman Sachs. Instant Messaging (IM) is becoming a presence on securities trading desks in the USA. One company, Pivot Solutions, has developed a product out of IM, "IMTRADER", for the trading desk. Furqan Nazeeri is quoted: "IM use [in trading] has grown explosively in the last view years. This is one of the hottest trends on Wall Street." Furqan Nazeeri is quoted: "We're happy that they view this as an important initiative, because it validates what we've known for quite a while," said Nazeeri. "We think that what's key to making a valuable solution for a client is not only connecting to a public IM network--AOL and other networks--but also integrating it with the applications on the desktop. We think the integration of the public IM networks is simply the first step in terms of delivering a valuable product, and we're happy to see that others believe that too." IMTRADER™, by Pivot Solutions, a Boston-based instant messaging and electronic trading network that was spun off from Eze Castle Integration, a sister company of Eze Castle Software, recently added algorithmic trading capabilities to its AOL IM front end. IMTRADER™, the AIM®-certified trading, communications and research distribution network, announced today that Instinet, LLC has begun using the IMTRADER IM trading solution as part of its client communications infrastructure for its securities crossing platforms, including LDXSM, IDXSM and the VWAP cross. IMTRADER™, the AIM®-certified trading, communications and research distribution network, announced today that Instinet, LLC has begun using the IMTRADER IM trading solution as part of its client communications infrastructure for its securities crossing platforms, including LDXSM, IDXSM and the VWAP cross. Link to full article... Vendors in the business of delivering orders from the buyside to the sellside were front and center at Wall Street's annual technology show. The Security Industry Association's Technology Management Conference & Exhibit, held in New York last month, had displays from about a dozen network vendors. Boston-based Pivot Solutions (booth 1818) is launching IMTRADER Network, an expanded version of its instant messaging network that includes a global directory service and research distribution in addition to electronic trading. The IMTRADER™ Network is based on a server that connects hundreds of buy-side firms to their sell-side counterparts. The new functionality is part of IMTRADER 3.0. The latest version of IMTRADER™ is geared to make the product friendlier to hedge funds that need access to research and order management systems. American Online has agreed to integrate its instant messaging service with broker dealers' order management systems. The largest instant messaging network used by the equity trading community is allowing a technology vendor to build a bridge between AOL's AIM service and various sellside order management systems. AOL Instant Messenger is the most prevalent instant messaging system used by the general population, and now it also is part of a new technology offering being distributed by brokers. Pivot Solutions' IMTRADER™ now has licensed connectivity with AOL Instant Messenger. Instant messages can be converted to electronic trades using the industry standard FIX (financial information exchange). Pivot Solutions, the Boston-based technology firm that builds instant messaging solutions for traders, expects to sign 26 new clients this year on the heels of linking its popular IMTRADER™ system with America Online's instant messenger service. The new service allows traders to execute orders delivered from clients via instant messaging on AOL. It is being marketed to middle-market brokerages. As football great Vince Lombardi once said, "There's no I in team." But there's certainly one in IM. Instant messaging is being used increasingly by enterprise teams - authorized or not - as a means to communicate and collaborate in real time. The popularity of instant messaging on Wall Street has soared in the past couple of years, transforming the way brokers communicate with each other and with their clients, for both good and ill. By taking on compliance fears, a new IM product may now be transofrming the way they trade. A nasty worm that targets computers through a popular instant messenger struck 1,000 computers in the U.S. last week, raising concern that instant messaging (IM) is on the verge of becoming a major conduit for spreading harmful viruses in the financial sector, which relies heavily on IM. Though instant messaging (IM) is a fast and convenient communications format, buy-side firms are still cautious about the regulatory implications of using the technology because they lack the compliance tools to archive and retrieve the content. Under SEC rule 17a-4, instant messages must be archived and retrievable and can't be edited or changed. Even hedge funds are shying away from using instant messaging to send orders to their brokers because there has been a lack of technology to create an audit trail. Furqan Nazeeri of Pivot Solutions demoed the 'bionic buddy' -- a bot that listens in to a buyer and seller IMing. And when the bot can identify a series of IM strokes that constitute a transaction, it acts as a clerk, and extracts the order info, pending the transaction to the broker. Then, on confirmation, the bot pushes the transaction into the trading system, and subsequently notifies the buyer of the transaction details. Sean McLaughlin '91 isn't your typical software CEO. Sure, he's got the traits. He's young (34), bright, ambitious, intense, brimming with ideas. He walks fast, talks faster, and rarely wears a necktie. He's also got the trappings: a hardworking young staff, an enviable client list, a headquarters in downtown Boston that, with its exposed brick walls and metal staircase, still looks like the leather factory it once was. A firm called Pivot Solutions, Boston, has begun operations, spinning out from the Eze Castle Integration, which is a provider of information technology services to the hedge fund industry. Pivot is selling a software suite that includes IMTRADER, a securities trading platform that combines electronic trading and multi-network instant messaging. The software was launched in early 2002 and is sold to buy-side and sell-side firms as an electronic trading and IM platform. Almost everyone outside the IT department loves instant messaging. This week, several companies showed off their efforts to boost interoperability, archiving and storage features of popular IM products--hopefully making them more palatable to IT staff in an era of new regulations. IMLogic unveiled IMLinkage Preview Edition, designed to meld the now-divergent worlds of America Online, Yahoo and MSN instant messaging within corporate CRM, SFA and other applications. In addition, IMLogic's IM Manager product adds control, security, reporting, archiving and compliance functions to the consumer messaging services. Eze Castle Integration Inc. cultivated a technology consulting practice that earned $20 million in revenue last year because of its expertise in the hedge fund business, executives said. Building on that success and expertise, the Boston-based company this year expects aggressive growth, including a foray into software development. Thomas Lloyd-Butler launched his eponymous Long/Short Fund LP at the beginning of 2003. The firm had some $10 million under management at midyear, and a small but growing number of investors. The diversified fund invests in only four sectors: energy, defense, technology and consumer cyclicals. Two of these sectors are correlated with the market, two are uncorrelated