I caught up with Harrell Smith, Head of Product Strategy for Portware yesterday. We chatted about the world of high frequency trading, of course, as well as what Portware is working on in the coming months. The company has a lot on its plate and according to Harrell, has experienced 40% growth this year despite the woes that most other technology and trading firms are experiencing. That growth is coming from smaller proprietary shops as well as larger sell side institutions. In fact, Harrell said Portware has recently signed on a European-based bulge bracket broker-dealer, which has helped to propel the firm’s growth. He was not at liberty to disclose the firms name until the fall.

One of the projects on Portware’s plate has been an enhancement to its options trading tool. Last year the company rolled out an enhancement to its foreign exchange trading application, and this year, the goal was to do the same for options. Harrell said the enhancements meant streamlining the graphical user interface and adjusting the way the traders are able to input and monitor orders. He noted, “In the same way we monitored FX, we collected feedback from our clients on (their experiences with our) options (trading system).” Portware quickly customizes its system for individual customers, but wanted to make many of the larger enhancements available to all of its customers in one fell swoop. Thus the new role out.

Harrell also filled me in on the progress Portware has made on implementing the new FIX specification—FIX atdl. This new specification allows for quick integration of broker-dealer algorithms into third party trading systems.

The specification is built on top of the FIX protocol and greatly reduces the time it takes to deploy a new or upgraded algorithm by 60-70%. “Prior to using FIX atdl, getting broker-dealers algorithms into the Portware system, or any other third-party system, was a very manual process,” he said. It was done through emails and phone calls in order to update the code.

“This will streamline and automate the process,” he notes. In the past it could take several days to bring a new algorithm into the system or upgrade a former one, now it could be a few hours to a day and a half or so, he estimated. That said, some algos with still need some manual attention, even with the new FIX specification. “It doesn’t encompass 100% of the variables,” he continued. However the core elements of the algorithms can be compiled and constructed using FIX.

Portware underwent a significant internal effort to ready its infrastructure to use the new standard, and, according to Harrell, Portware has just become one of the first firms to be compliant with the new FIX specification.