“The London Stock Exchange suffered its worst systems failure in eight years on Monday, forcing the world’s third largest share market to suspend trading for about seven hours and infuriating its users,” Daisy Ku and Dominic Lau report for Reuters.
“The problem occurred on what could have been one of London’s busiest trading days of the year, as markets rebounded worldwide following the U.S. government’s decision to bail out mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” Ku and Lau report.
“‘We have the biggest takeover in the history of the known world … and then we can’t trade. It’s terrible,’ one trader said,” Ku and Lau report. “The Johannesburg Stock Exchange, which uses the LSE’s trading platform TradElect, also suspended trading.”
“‘This halt today clearly has once again damaged (the LSE’s) reputation as a leading exchange, especially on a day like today, highlighting that it may have been unable to handle the volumes this morning,’ added another trader,” Ku and Lau report.
Ku and Lau report, “The exchange would not say whether volume was the issue and declined to give details on what had caused the problem. But angry customers were demanding an explanation. ‘We want answers as to how this happened in the first place and reassurances that it will not happened again,’ said Angus Rigby, chief executive of brokerage TD Waterhouse.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: How this happened in the first place is that some genius signed off on inflicting Microsoft “technology” on the LSE. By now, it should be pretty obvious to just about anyone: if you want something to work, you steer clear of Microsoft, not base your stock exchange on it. Read on:
On June 18 2007, OnWindows.com proudly reported, “TradElect, the London Stock Exchange’s new electronic trading system, has gone live. The new technology platform has been developed using the Microsoft .NET Framework, with support from Microsoft and Accenture, and marks the final phase of the Exchange’s four-year Technology Road Map project.”
“‘The introduction of TradElect, the culmination of a four year investment in next generation technology, will deliver a step change in trading capabilities to the London market,’ said David Lester, chief information officer at the Exchange. ‘As high-frequency algorithmic traders look globally for pools of liquidity in which to find alpha opportunities, TradElect sets new benchmarks in terms of system capacity and performance,'” OnWindows.com reported.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The Microsoft .NET-based TradElect certainly set some new benchmarks: zero capacity, zero performance.
Microsoft. For when you absolutely, positively don’t give a shit whether it works or not.
this is just too easy
microsoft…lol
who ever said slapstick was dead?
i can’t wait for ballmer to hit full stride…
did you expect less from a great combo of Accenture and Microsoft? incompetence + incompetence != clue
Great, these do-nothings on the stock markets deserve to be screwed once in a while. The markets are a gigantic Ponzi scam, with suits making millions for pushing buttons, manipulating money.
I made money on aapl by doing nothing but guessing. I also made money by working for it and by producing something valuable.
Fssk ’em.
The WOW starts now?
You lie in the bed you make.
When are these lemmings ever going to wake up? Where is Morpheus when you need him?
‘As high-frequency algorithmic traders look globally for pools of liquidity in which to find alpha opportunities….”
What’d he say?
I find it rather convenient that Microsoft systems have back doors for people who like to manipulate the markets. Happy to hear that CIA is not the only one with the access, hah!
Ho!ho! They hadn’t switched yet? Ooh! That’s toooooooooo baaaaaaad! ;/
“The introduction of TradElect, the culmination of a four year investment in next generation technology, will deliver a step change in trading capabilities to the London market,” said David Lester, chief information officer at the Exchange. “As high-frequency algorithmic traders look globally for pools of liquidity in which to find alpha opportunities, TradElect sets new benchmarks in terms of system capacity and performance.”
If Mr. Lester had used English to specify the new system, things might have worked out better.
“As high-frequency algorithmic traders look globally for pools of liquidity in which to find alpha opportunities….”
It’s code.
On a daily basis, cruise ship spas are stalked by math majors looking to swap their young prey.
“I find it rather convenient that Microsoft systems have back doors for people who like to manipulate the markets.”
So, Bill Gates’ butt wiggle in that train wreck of a commercial was actually a signal to inside investors.
Do we feel a Mac & PC ad coming on?
BSOB – not death, but bankruptcy.
Microsoft and the billable hour w**res from Accenture – now there’s a match made in he11. Serves LSE right – either one of these would have doomed the system on their own, together they’ve manage to create a truly spectacular flaming wreck.
Don’t worry, Ballmer will fix it. He’ll spend a couple zillion dollars on an ad campaign. That ought to do it.
My, how the mighty have fallen!
I always had a touch of loyalty to this name, especially as it battled to defend itself from Deutsche Bourse, Next and the NY Stock Exchange.
As of today the LSE can be bought by the Beijing Toy Bazaar for all I care – anyone would make a better fist of it.
If only 1% of the London Stock Exchange failed and Apple was running it, Apple’s stock would have tanked. Again, they give Microsoft a pass.
The clueless idiots. SWITCH
It’s their choice:
Eunuchs or UNIX.
I would like to personally congratulate whomever signed off on this ‘upgrade’ to the LSE’s computer system.
GG, losers.
OMG! Did you notice that the entire original article was written without mentionning Microsoft by name once! Unbelievable.
When oh when…???
gee, sounds a bit like Mobile Me doesn’t it ?
“Did you notice that the entire original article was written without mentionning Microsoft by name once!”
Not surprising when the author is an authentic Gates brand Dingleberry™ (or Tiger Nuts).
Ok… a bit of reality check here. The .NET framework is NOT what was at fault.
As a developer, I love using the Mac. However, I have worked for several years in Microsoft development environments, including the .NET framework. To characterize .NET as “zero performance zero capacity” is dishonest and simply untrue. We have enterprise applications that have been running for YEARS with no downtime.
I don’t care what development environment you use – if care is not taken, bugs will occur. Twitter is RoR. It took a while for them to sort things out. Oh, and let’s see… MobileMe… what was that developed in?
I love the Mac, I love developing software on the Mac, but the reality is regardless of what platform you use, what tools you use, you will be humbled by bugs.
MS is using a stand-up comic in there latest advertisements now we see just what a joke .net is.
Not everyone who works for Accenture is a total clown. There were two other Mac users in my small (two dozen?) group while I was there. Then they moved my job to Canada and two of us (Mac-users) were stranded. I did try to convince them that it was not wise to force employees to rely on an IE-based communications system … “it’s the standard”. I mean … stuff that would not work – no way, no how – with any other browser from any other source. But you had to use it to put in your hours – or not get paid.
They tried to skimp our pay at the end. Then the lawyers found out that they had charged the client extra for holidays we had worked “for extra pay”. And they still wanted us to suck up the lack of pay. But … BOY were they pissed at me for poking that hole in their profits!
😀
Wind your necks in fanboys, as Reality Check rightly says you cannot blame this on .Net. Let he who has never encountered a bug on any program on a Mac cast the first stone.
I’m no fan of .Net but also not naive and blinkered enough to point fingers at M$ when the cause is more likely to be within the LSE code.
I hope someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t the NY Stock Exchange migrated to all-Windows environment several years back? If memory serves me correctly, they had deployed Win 2003 Advanced servers with the MS SQL farm, “for high availability”…
I’m not sure what NASDAQ is running on, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was MS as well.
“‘m not sure what NASDAQ is running on . . .”
Mostly unrealistic expectations and Red Bull.
Love the flying chair….
My crystal ball sees the government bailing out M$ in the next decade just as it is doing to other failed institutions today.
The public pays once more for the herd mentality.
You guys are right, one bug, but it is a doozy!
Besides the LSE should know that The Conquistador needs to be “broken in”. Just wear them in the shower. That way, when your done getting hosed, you can go about your business…
No profanity, please. This is a family site. Thanks.
8 hours? HA that’s nothing! I dropped my Powerbook down a manhole and was out of business for TWO DAYS until I pulled it away from the sewer rats.
(Incidentally sewer rats are really big fans of Tetris and World of Warcraft. They’re not so wild about Firefox though.)
“This is a family site.”
Yeah, the Addams family.
I blame Accenture rather than their bedfellows MS…. everything they touch breaks sooner rather than later.
It’s the Curse of Zune! Announce new Zune updates and DOOM SHALL FOLLOW!
Seriously. Who the dweebs who call themselves ‘professionals’ who let the LSE go Microsoft? OMFG what a blunder.
You know I think this is a .NET problem. I’ve used several large programs that use it as their native framework and all of them have been buggy and crash randomly.
But isn’t that just like Microsoft to put out a ‘Beta’ product.
Ed sez: “I blame Accenture rather than their bedfellows MS…. everything they touch breaks sooner rather than later.”
But, um, everything MS touch breaks sooner, and later. So, your point is what?
Seriously, we still need to see the postmortem before we can do the LOL and finger wagging routine with authority.
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