Institutional Investor's Alpha Magazine - November 2007 - (Page 49)

Alpha Awards™ Top Technology Providers THE 2007 ALPHA AWARDS™ Turning ALPHA AWARDS™ TOP TECHNOLOGY FIRMS EXECUTION MANAGEMENT FutureTrade INVESTOR RELATIONS MANAGEMENT Backstop Solutions Group ORDER MANAGEMENT Eze Castle Software PORTFOLIO ACCOUNTING Goldman, Sachs & Co. RISK MANAGEMENT Morgan Stanley toTech Hedge funds are demanding more-and-more-advanced technology solutions for their trading needs, but service and support often determine which providers they choose. By Irwin Speizer Awards™ for technology service providers. To compile our second annual rankings of the leading technology providers, Alpha once again turned to the hedge funds that rely on them to find out which firms and services fund managers and traders most value. Throughout the summer and early fall, we polled nearly 300 hedge fund management ﬁrms, representing more than $600 billion in assets under management. But this year, to provide more in-depth results, we have broken technology out from the Alpha Awards for top service providers that ran in the October issue of Alpha. We also broadened the questions we asked and separated Execution Management as a stand-alone category from last year’s Trade Order Management category. Though many of the names from last year’s rankings reappear, the winning ﬁrms this year are dramatically different. Eze Castle Software tops Order Management; Goldman, Sachs & Co. leads the Portfolio Accounting pack; and Morgan Stanley is hedge fund managers’ No. 1 pick for Risk Management, while FutureTrade is the winner in Execution NOVEMBER 2007 • INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR’S ALPHA • 49 H edge funds can be a fickle bunch when it comes to technology services. Companies and products lauded one year fall off the radar the next, as picky fund managers constantly seek software solutions that can help them perform their jobs faster and more effectively. Whether they come from independent vendors or brokerages, solutions need to be packed with functions yet simple to use and able to easily interface with other software. More than anything, however, solutions must be accompanied by first-class support. Even software nimble enough to respond to wild market gyrations won’t cut it in today’s ﬁnancial world without strong service and support. “If you build the best widget but can’t support it, you won’t be successful,” says Jeremie Bacon, president and CEO of Chicago-based Backstop Solutions Group. “To be successful long-term, support and service have to be No. 1.” Backstop is the top-ranked ﬁrm among Investor Relations Management software providers in this year’s Alpha Photos by Evan Kafka for Alpha

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Institutional Investor's Alpha Magazine - November 2007

Institutional Investor's Alpha Magazine - November 2007 Contents Letter from the Editor Longs & Shorts Pension Corner: Patriot State The Good Guys: College Connection Interview: Currency of Change Cover Story: Comeback Kid Strategies: Masters of Art Research Center: Alpha Awards: Top Technology Providers Top Analysts Alpha Bytes: Critical Choice Unhedged: Commentary: Banking on a Bubble

Institutional Investor's Alpha Magazine - November 2007

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