The military analogy is a perennial favourite with market participants and pundits alike. A particularly enthusiastic recent example was the IBM report 'Tackling latency - the algorithmic arms race', the opening gambit of which states that "the lone gun-slinger of the open-outcry trading floors is rapidly being replaced by ultra-fast, computerised trading systems which are more akin to robots with machine guns."
It is worth noting that the oft-used language of war and weaponry has a surprisingly literal relevance in this context. Progress Software, which supplies algorithmic trading tools to the likes of JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and HG Capital under the Apama brand, also counts the US Army among its customers: the company's FusionNet technology is used for distributing battlefield data and intelligence among personnel on the ground.
Progress bought Apama last April because, says Mark Palmer, VP of event stream processing, the technology has broad application both within the...