Progress Software has been recognized as QAD’s Technology Partner of the Year, so we sat down to chat with them about why Progress was picked, what makes a good partnership and how the industry is changing. Progress Guys (PG): In your words, why was Progress selected for this prestigious award? Progress was selected to be Partner of the Year because... Continue reading

Part 2 Last time, I wrote about the challenges mobile telcos are facing - how they are in danger of becoming utility bitpipes to the Internet and how some are responding by ensuring subscribers receive high quality, proactive customer service. Having high customer service ambitions is one thing, but how do companies take it further? How do they go beyond... Continue reading

By Richard Bentley, Vice President, Capital Markets, Progress Software When cracking a nut, would you normally use a sledgehammer or a more precise tool? It may sound like a daft question, but it’s nonetheless one that occurred to me at the European Trading Technology Conference, TradeTech, in London earlier this week. Much of the conference’s agenda was focused on two... Continue reading

By Richard Bentley, Vice President, Capital Markets, Progress Software In 1963, Avis owned up to being only the second largest car rental company in the U.S. (after Hertz). "We try harder because we have to" was the catch phrase. The advertising campaign was a massive success; it gave Avis more business and a new brand identity. Sometimes being second is... Continue reading

Earlier this week, I spoke at IQPC’s Business Process Excellence for Financial Services conference in New York. As a chairperson for the event, I took great pride in bringing together a community of experts and thought leaders to discuss the burgeoning technology issues facing financial institutions. By working together we are able to mitigate operational risk. In my presentation, How... Continue reading

It’s tax time again and, like many of you, I will be filing my return electronically. Last year, the IRS reported that more than 112 million income tax returns were e-filed, or 77% of all the individual returns filed. That’s a lot of transactions hitting the IRS servers, and odds are with 112 million of anything you’re going to have... Continue reading

In a recent blog post, I discussed my belief that in today’s increasingly mobile, connected world, banks are finding themselves facing a ‘perfect storm’ which will necessitate a complete change in their approach if they are to continue to survive. Interestingly, this was one of the key topics for discussion at the recent Retail Banking in Europe conference in Brussels,... Continue reading

The rapidly changing nature of business is a given. As the business landscape evolves, so too must internal processes and operations, industry regulations, new venues for conducting business, such as the cloud and mobile environments. Consequently, it’s now even more necessary to maintain continuous uptime for business-critical applications and fast, accurate decision making capabilities for the people who drive the... Continue reading

Editor’s Note: the following includes thoughts and insight on the World Exchange Congress from Theo Hildyard, Solutions Architect, Market Surveillance at Progress Software. When the announcement of the first Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (known as MiFID) was made in November 2007, it was with a view to increasing competition and protecting consumers in investment services. Despite the European Commission's... Continue reading

In English football (soccer) an "own goal" is when a player scores against his own team (usually accidentally). Sports videos and books are full of own goal blunders and the players almost never live them down. The term has become synonymous with anything that backfires upon the perpetrator. So when BATS experienced an embarrassing technology problem on the day that... Continue reading

Like most companies, we have our own lingo here. Definitions, jokes, double entendres all float through the air and are shared virally, like great Dilbert comics. To my surprise last week, I stumbled on a Harvard Business Review blog post from author Whitney Johnson related to Progress vernacular. While the post focuses on the reasons social media is important, I... Continue reading

The following is an excerpt from Dr. John Bates’ recent commentary on HuffingtonPost, which discusses the current state of high frequency trading. After three years of severe market volatility, and a jaw-dropping flash crash, the financial rock star phenomenon known as high frequency trading (HFT) looks a little burned out. Like many rock stars, HFT seems to be suffering from... Continue reading

Like the iconic sandwich from the Blondie comic strip, comprehensive integration is all about options. As a stand alone, a single ingredient (i.e. lettuce, tomatoes or your favorite condiment) isn’t the real deal, but when you’re able to systematically combine them into a complete and compelling offering (i.e. fresh mayo + roast-beef + tomatoes+ melted cheese), the result is irresistible.... Continue reading

Editor’s Note: the following includes thoughts and insight on the Gartner BPM Summit in London from Jeff Reser, Senior Solutions Market Manager, Business Process Platforms at Progress Software. In the Gartner BPM Summit keynote, Janelle Hill and Daryl Plummer outlined 7 key changes in business that are necessary to take a giant leap forward in realizing the benefits of BPM.... Continue reading

Editor’s note: The following includes thoughts and insight on business rules management and innovation from Corticon founder and Progress CTO, Dr. Mark Allen. Hopefully you’ve seen our recent press announcement regarding the Progress Corticon BRMS v5.2 release, our first release as a part of Progress Software. This demonstrates that Progress is committed to continuing to enhance Corticon BRMS as the... Continue reading

Whenever I’m asked whether Business Process Management (BPM) is the secret ingredient for achieving a truly successful business, it always makes me chuckle. Not because BPM can’t be a useful and highly effective tool in and of itself, but because, in my view, it’s only one of a number of weapons available to organizations in their operational efficiency arsenal. It’s... Continue reading

The payments space has experienced a huge influx of interest in recent months, with global players such as Google and PayPal making continued investments in new technologies aimed at simplifying the payments process for customers. However, as anyone who has held discussions with global retail banks will testify, payments, for the most part, are still regarded as nothing more than... Continue reading

Let’s face it; the novelty of SOA has worn off. It has now entered the mainstream. But, for many of the early SOA adopters, the promise of increased agility hasn’t lived up to the reality – especially when it comes to data. First generation SOA was focused primarily on service mediation, enabling applications to be transformed into reusable services. But... Continue reading

The following is an excerpt from Dr. John Bates’ recent commentary on Huffington Post, which discusses Italian Borsa’s recent decision regarding high frequency trading. The Italian stock exchange Borsa Italiana's decision to clamp down on "excessive" HFT orders is likely to be a shot heard around the world. The Borsa is considering charging HFT firms for sending too many orders,... Continue reading

Banking innovation is about improving the customer experience Continue reading

The following is an excerpt from Dr. John Bates’ recent commentary on Huffington Post, which discusses Twitter’s ability to predict financial market sentiment. Continue reading

Banking organizations are fraught with silos. Operating this way must feel like looking at the world through a straw, I imagine. With a limited view, your ability to affect change is thwarted by the distortion of the full magnitude of any given situation. With this narrow perspective, you’re vulnerable to errors or worse, fraud and revenue leakage. Compounding this issue... Continue reading

Corticon founder Dr. Mark Allen shares the full story behind rules management innovation: The idea for Corticon started back in 1995, during my medical training at UCLA. As a part of government-funded research projects, I built rule-based systems to automate clinical decisions, such as what diagnostic tests to order, or treatments to render. My research proved that physicians using these... Continue reading