Well we're off to the Races and Facebook is now a publicly traded company on Nasdaq ticker symbol FB. Nasdaq despite testing may have had a hiccup and I have a theory.
For the longest time the NYSE was based on ultra high availability computers carrying names such as Tandem and Stratus. NYSE systems were built and maintained by people with decades of experience. Around the time of 9/11 I had joked you can shoot these boxes with a gun and they'd still run. When Nasdaq came along still systems were built and maintained by people with decades of experience. Well along came the precursors to modern High Frequency Traders the alternate exchanges.
These alternate exchanges with names such as Archipelago were build on off the shelf hardware and software. Meaning Dell and HP servers running Windows and Linux Operating systems. Now amongst those working in NYSE and NASDAQ these were know perhaps derisively as Garage exchanges or oh god there go those kids in a garage.
Well at some point the NYSE saw the value of Archa as know in shorthand and acquired it
With a mixture of vision and nostalgia, the seat owners of the New York Stock Exchange voted Tuesday to acquire Chicago-based Archipelago Holdings Inc., a deal that will transform the 213-year-old Big Board into a for-profit company with new, high-tech trading capabilities.
More than 95 percent of the voting members approved the $9 billion transaction, according to the NYSE. More than 90 percent of the exchange's 1,366 seats were represented in the vote, tallied in the exchange's sixth-floor conference room, considered a Wall Street institution.
"There certainly was some nostalgia there," John Thain, chief executive of the NYSE, said in a conference call with reporters. "A lot of attendees were members for many, many years, and they wanted to be present at this historic transaction and say that they were there."
You recognize John Thain? He's the guy who would late take over troubled
Merrill Lynch and arrange the sale to Bank of America only to be kicked to the curb because of an insane decorator bill, but that's another story..
The point is that with the merger with Archa sudden the kids in the garage were being put in charge and the folks with decades of experience put out to pasture. I've been told Nasdaq started doing the same on the principle of hey what does NYSE know and we don't?
Well today maybe that's not such a smoking hot idea dumping people when they reach a certain age. Today Facebook started trading today and despite apparently multiple days of stress testing they hit some sort of problem. Maybe just maybe it might be experience matters.
For more IT War stories at the Famed Merill Lynch , Yes I have a book to sell