LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Peter Georgaras <pgeorga@iprimus.com.au>
  To  : <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:48:34 +1030

[Article] Dresdner Backs Linux-Based Software, a First

FYI, found this article on-line....


=====Start of article=====

Dresdner Backs Linux-Based Software, a First

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The investment banking arm of Germany's Dresdner Bank 
AG has teamed up with Silicon Valley-based CollabNet to offer an innovative 
system that thrusts Linux software into the heart of the banking world.

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein on Tuesday plans to announce the new 
software system based on Linux, Apache and other "open source" Web software 
tools that could radically simplify and speed how corporate clients move 
money within and among banks.

And in a move that would have once been considered an anathema to the 
secretive banking world, Dresdner Kleinwort plans to freely release its 
"openadaptor" plumbing software to programmers in the wider "open source" 
community.

"Open source" refers to software that is developed, tested, or improved 
through public collaboration and distributed with the idea that it must be 
shared with others, ensuring an open future collaboration.

Dresdner officials said they had set up partnerships with two of the 
world's three top investment banks to develop the system, known as 
"openadaptor," for connecting disparate banking software and other 
corporate information systems.

"All the large companies use multiple banks and the key to them is not to 
be trapped or feel trapped" into one software system, Al-Noor Ramji, chief 
information officer at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, said in a phone 
interview.

"If you make it easier and cheaper people tend to do more," Jonathan 
Lindsell, another Dresdner executive, referring to the willingness to trade 
more securities as the cost of transaction-handling declines.

Open source software marks a radical break with proprietary software in 
which the fundamental code is owned by one company, such as Microsoft 
Corp.'s flagship product, the Windows operating system, or UNIX software 
offered by several firms.

USES LATEST INTERNET PROGRAMMING TOOLS

In contrast to traditional private in-house systems or banking industry 
software standards, openadaptor takes advantage of the latest Internet 
programming tools.

The system allows Dresdner software developers to team up with outside 
programmers at other banks or in the Linux development world at large via a 
programming site managed by CollabNet.

Open source software advocates believe the intellectual collaboration of 
minds will improve the software for all involved. Individual developers or 
companies are in turn free to tailor specific versions for their own 
organization's uses.

Openadaptor will allow any system that can be connected to the Internet to 
communicate and link with other systems, Dresdner said. Companies can plug 
together their own internal systems as with those from other companies -- 
their suppliers, business partners or customers over the Internet.

"Enabling our clients to interact on the Web with anyone they choose will 
not only increase market transparency and liquidity; it will reduce costs 
and increase business for all," Ramji said in a statement to be released on 
Tuesday.

"We therefore have to take fundamentally important steps such as speeding 
up connectivity for all our clients even at the so-called expense of 
helping our competitors," he said.

Openadaptor is built on the open source development system from CollabNet, 
a Brisbane, Calif. company founded by Brian Behlendorf, a pioneer in the 
development of Apache software, one of the most popular tools used to run 
Web-based computers.

CollabNet's system, known as SourceCast, allows programmers to work 
together via the Internet, whether or not they are actually employed by the 
same firm.

CollabNet is backed by a high-powered list of venture capitalists, banks 
and corporate partners including Intel Corp. , Sun Microsystems, Oracle 
Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Computer Corp. as well as Netscape 
co-founder Marc Andreessen.

To date it has announced software development projects with Sun, 
Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and Progress Software, among others.

=====End of article=====

This article appeared at:

http://dailynews.netscape.com/mynsnews/story.tmpl?table=n&cat=50300&id=200101292042000265511

Cheers,

Peter


P.S.
Is there a policy on this list re: cut/copy'n'paste of articles?
(i.e. can/should articles be pasted onto the list? is it preferable to 
supply just the link?)


--
============================
    Peter A. Georgaras
   <pgeorga@iprimus.com.au>
============================


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