Andrew Shorten @ Adobe

Last month I mentioned a webcast featuring a discussion relating to Morgan Stanley’s use of Flex for their “Matrix” rich Internet application. It took longer than I’d have liked, but I finally got access to a recording of the webcast and am pleased to make it available here for playback.

Participants in this hour and a quarter long session discuss how developers at financial firms use rich Internet application technologies to integrate real-time data, with the delivery of audio, video, reports and rich interactive charts to trading applications.

Panel participants were: Hishaam Mufti-Bey (Matrix founder and global director at Morgan Stanley), Stephane Malrait (Global Head of eCommerce at Societe Generale), Mark Greenaway (Adobe), Trevor LaFleche (Senior Analyst at Financial Insights). Moderator was: Vivake Gupta, Managing Director, Lab49

For a quick summary of the key points and some interesting commentary as to why Morgan Stanley chose Flex over Silverlight check out Tim Anderson’s blog entry and the comments.

If my earlier post regarding the Morgan Stanley Matrix application was of interest then I’d recommend that you sign-up for a free webcast entitled “Transcending the client experience” which is being hosted by Finextra and Adobe next Monday.

The 75 minute long session will look at how developers at financial firms integrate real-time data, with the delivery of audio, video, reports and rich interactive charts into trading applications.

The Global Director at Morgan Stanley responsible for the Matrix application will be presenting and taking part in the panel discussion (alongside representatives from Lab49, Adobe, Societe Generale and Credit Suisse) so it will be a good opportunity to learn more about the Matrix project and the experience they gained from implementing a large-scale RIA with Adobe’s Flash Platform.

More details about the event, which takes place on Monday 27th July at 2pm (UK), are available here (note: you need to register for this session).

I’m not sure when this data was published on Adobe.com, but as part of the revamped “Flash Platform for enterprise applications” page, there is a link to a set of statistics that relate specifically to the availability of Flash Player within enterprise organizations.

We’ve published statistics about the general availability of Flash Player for some time (based on results from a survey undertaken by Millward Brown), which as of June 2009 shows that 98.8% of internet-connected computers can display Flash Player 9 content, whilst 86.7% can already display Flash Player 10 content.

The enterprise-specific results have been compiled by Forrester Research, based on data from over 50,000 of its corporate clients. The headline results are as follows:

• 96.8% of corporate users can view Flash Player 9 content (this is the version of Flash Player required to access applications built using Flex 3 SDK)
• Within 3 months of release (the survey data comes from December 2008), Flash Player 10 was already available to 36% of customers within enterprise organisations

The quick adoption of Flash Player 10 within the enterprise is encouraging for those considering the deployment of Flex 4-based applications once the final SDK is released – I’d recommend that you keep an eye out for updates to this survey data to see how adoption of the latest player continues over time.

For those considering deployment of Flash Player within an enterprise environment, check out the resources here for IT and administrative professionals.

Morgan Stanley have launched a comprehensive online trading tool called “Matrix” which allows their customers to get closer to the trading floor than ever before; the application enables them to view live pricing, get informed opinions for market professionals, review historical market data and make derivatives and foreign exchange trades in real-time, directly from their browser.

This impressive rich Internet application (RIA), which has a strong focus on the quality of the user experience, was built using Adobe’s Flash Platform technologies, and integrates real-time data, with the delivery of audio, video, reports and rich interactive charts to provide a next-generation trading platform for Morgan Stanley’s customers.

The sheer quantity of data presented within the application, combined with the performance and responsiveness of the user interface, is impressive and really demonstrates the potential that rich Internet applications offer. This certainly has to be one of the most ambitious and successfully executed applications built using Flex and raises the bar as to what can be achieved within the browser.

For more information on the project and a virtual walkthrough of the application visit Morgan Stanley’s website: http://www.morganstanley.com/matrixinfo/

More pictures below:

There is a three part video interview with Shantanu Narayen, Adobe’s CEO, up on FT.com today as part of their “View from the Top” series, in which they talk to CEOs about news and trends within their respective industry.

In Part 2 of the interview, the conversation is focused on the adoption of Flash on mobile phones and the competition between Flash and Microsoft Silverlight, as well as Adobe’s strategy for getting new technology adopted as a standard and cloud computing. There is some interesting discussion about Adobe’s relationship with Apple and Google.

You can watch that video here, from which you’ll also find links to the other parts of the interview.

There is also an article in today’s FT and available online which summaries some of the discussion points.