Bringing OpenGamma In House

19 May 2011 By Kirk Wylie

Since the 0.7.0 release announcement, and the 0.7.1 follow-up maintenance release, we've been pleased at just how many of you have decided to download the OpenGamma Platform. Some of you are downloading from home, but many of you are downloading from your firm. There have been downloads from hedge funds (large and small), investment banks, proprietary trading firms, commercial banks, asset managers, and systems integrators.

Although this is primarily a developer preview release, as we said in the original announcement, the system is actually a lot more functional than you can see in the 0.7.1 examples. In particular, the major components you need to quickly get up and running with real-world sources of data (our market/reference/historical data integration with Bloomberg, Reuters, and ACTIV data sources) we can't release for legal reasons. In addition, our Excel Integration Module, which exposes the entire Platform in Excel (and can be used for any arbitrary Java code, including your own), also can't be released Open Source.

Here's the thing though: we actually can let you have them as part of a formal evaluation or internal PoC. We just have to get some disclaimers (so that Bloomberg doesn't sue us if you violate your agreement with them).

But choosing to bring us onsite to talk with you and walk you through the status of the platform has additional advantages for you:

• We're willing to sign NDAs, which allow you to talk to us about things your manager or corporate information security officers might not allow you to post on OpenGamma's Developer Forums.
• We can fast-track your understanding of the system and how you could integrate your existing code and systems into the Platform.
• We can find out what you're thinking of using the OpenGamma Platform for, and suggest which features (current or forthcoming) might be ideal for you.

So what's in it for us? Obviously, we think you'll be so impressed with our commercial capabilities that eventually you might write us a cheque or two. We're not going to lie about that. But this offer isn't about that.

Primarily, we want to talk to you so that we can make the Platform better. Every bit of feedback we get from you helps us prioritize the features and focus on the areas that you want us to focus. And we know that you may be far more comfortable telling us in person (rather than posting it on the internet), given the secretive nature of our industry.

So please feel free to contact us via our website, or just email me or Henning. We'd love to meet with you, and we think you'll find it just as useful if you're already looking at the code!