London Stock Exchange Moves to Linux

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has announced that it will be dumping its $65 Million (US) Microsoft based trading system, TradElect, in favor of the Linux and Solaris based MillenniumIT system. In fact they bought the entire MillenniumIT company for only $30 Million which is a real bargain.

Although some have said that the LSE’s experience with the MS .NET trading system was positive, the Linux and Solaris based system is easier to install and use and executes trades over six (yes 6) times faster than the old system. That is 0.4 milliseconds for the MillenniumIT system vs 2.7 milliseconds for the Microsoft system. In an environment where milliseconds is money, that is a huge advantage.

The other aspect of this is that this leaves the TradElect trading system with only one customer which is currently considering the switch to MillenniumIT as well. Of course they cannot buy the company because the LSE has already done.

Read more details in the IBSJ News.