Application Networks comes out from shadows

Application Networks, a software provider specialising in software for leading capital market firms, has announced its first Wall Street customer.

The software company, which has been in 'stealth mode' for the last three years during the development of its application network product, has announced that JP Morgan Chase is its first customer. The company says it also has two other leading financial institutions as customers but that it can not yet name them.

Lionel Simon, co-founder and vice-president, engineering, for Application Networks, says the company is in the middle of a highly selective marketing process. “We have made a list of those financial institutions with IT [information technology] budgets of over $500 million annually,” Simon told RiskNews. “That limits our potential client list to nine firms.”

The application network, created in Java computer language, is designed to give firms a 'skeleton' with which to integrate their electronic trading and portfolio data on a global basis. Simon says firms then build their own individual IT systems onto this skeleton to satisfy their specific requirements.

Simon claims JP Morgan used the application network to integrate its front, middle and back office systems for its credit derivatives operations, and claims Application Networks reduced the time needed for the firm’s development of its new credit derivatives operations from 2.5 years to about 8 months.

The company has been using venture capital during its secretive developmental process, or 'stealth mode'. The founders, Simon and Evrard Van Hertsen previously founded Renaissance Software, which was sold to SunGard.