Macgregor Announces General Availability of Industry's First Order Management Network; Process-Oriented, Internet-Scale Solution Optimizes Buy-Side Execution Process.

BOSTON -- Macgregor(R), a leading global provider of buy-side investment management technology, today announced the general availability of Macgregor XIP 7s, the industry's first Order Management Network(TM) (OMN(TM)). XIP 7s is Macgregor's third generation of order management technology and the result of a three-year effort to advance execution process technology beyond traditional order management system (OMS) capabilities. This process-oriented, Internet-scale solution combines software based on a service-oriented architecture with a robust network-based service grid. XIP 7s is able to support a firm's execution process from portfolio decision through to settlement by connecting all internal and external parties involved. Its high degree of flexibility and customization enables firms to tailor the solution to their unique workflow requirements and eliminate even the smallest inefficiencies from their process. As of today, thirty clients have selected this new technology, and an additional seven are already in production.

Steven Levy, President and CEO of Macgregor stated: "For asset managers, optimizing the execution process goes to the heart of a firm's competitiveness and profitability. So far, traditional OMSs have helped by reducing errors, increasing investment decision making speed and lowering operational costs. Key to fully optimizing the process however requires the integration of all parties and services involved in the process, even those outside the firm, and the tailoring of the system to support a firm's unique workflow requirements."

"The XIP 7s OMN is able to address these challenges by combining software based on a service-oriented architecture with a robust network-based service grid," continued Levy. "This service grid, or Web of Services as we like to call it, allows asset managers to connect with their counterparties and access services that reside outside of their firm. Most importantly, all of these services have been designed and tested so that any semantic differences between them have been addressed, allowing them to work together immediately. Today, clients can access over 250 different services on the grid including FIX-based trade execution services and non-FIX based post-trade, prime brokerage, data and analytics services. In our OMN, the software and the network function as a single system, and all the services and integration are supported from front to back."

Levy concluded, "What also makes our OMN so compelling is its extensibility. XIP 7s allows asset managers to develop new services and capabilities that reflect their unique execution process requirements and incorporate them into the front-end of the system; in an area we call the Process Portal. In the Process Portal, new and pre-existing applications, regardless of who built them, the technology they were built on or where they may reside, can be easily integrated, put into context with each other and delivered to a single user's desktop. This makes XIP 7s extremely agile with respect to creating and delivering additional capabilities, better able to cope with the adoption of new technologies and highly customizable to each user's requirements."

About Macgregor

Founded in 1991, Macgregor(R) has set the standard in investment technology for the global buy-side community. Macgregor's unique architectural approach to developing workflow solutions is embodied in its Order Management Network(TM) (OMN(TM)), Macgregor XIP(TM), which combines powerful portfolio management, compliance, trading and post-trade tools with a fully integrated and supported financial services IP network. This system helps move information through the entire investment process with increased speed, accuracy and efficiency, resulting in better investment performance. Supporting both FIX and non-FIX messages, XIP delivers a range of pre-trade, trade and post-trade services to the user's desktop and provides the ultimate in liquidity with access to more than 240 broker/dealers, electronic communications networks (ECNs) and alternative trading systems.

Macgregor's extended architecture affords its clients and partners the unique efficiencies and power that can only be achieved through a large, diverse and well-connected community of users. With offices in Boston, New York, San Francisco, London, Madrid and Hong Kong, Macgregor helps more than 90 of the largest institutions in the world manage over $5.5T in global assets.