The new joint venture, unveiled today at the Securities Industry Association's technology show in New York, aims to provide a low-cost infrastructure for market participants to communicate internally and with counterparties and multiple trade utilities from a single point of contact. It utilises CapCo's STP Bridge message transformation product running over Microsoft's BizTalk Server and will be available in beta version in Q3, with shipping of the finished product expected in the fourth quarter.

Built using Microsoft's .NET Web services platform, STP bridge is an off-the-shelf solution for translating, formatting and re-routing pre and post-trade capital markets messaging protocols.

Predrag Dizdarevic, executive vice president and head of Capco Solutions, says the product "provides seamless collaboration in real time between market players and emerging transaction-matching utilities".

The initiative marks Microsoft's first major alliance in the STP space, defined by the Tower group as a $19 billion technology investment market for financial institutions.

Larry Tabb, vice president of the securities and investment practice of TowerGroup believes the Microsoft/Capco venture will make it possible for any market participant of any size to achieve cross-platform STP.

"The end result will be improved STP at an affordable price point,” he says.

Microsoft has also unveiled an expanded relationship with Thomson Financial covering messaging, database technology, desktop product integration and systems
development within Thomson's First Call institutional research network.