Kx added Mac support because of increasing requests from kdb+ developers, who work in the leading global financial firms that comprise the Kx user base.

"As Apple continues to offer larger, faster servers built on Intel processors, the Macintosh is becoming an attractive alternative for financial institutions," said Simon Garland, Kx CTO. "IT departments are looking for maintainable performance, and Macintosh servers are simple to administer. Kdb+ doesn't need a raft of clusters and grids in order to deliver millisecond query response times. New customers are often surprised by how much they can accomplish using our software with a single processor."

Kx expects the Macintosh option for kdb+ to appeal to leading financial firms not only for corporate servers but also because the Mac's stable and easy-to-use development platform appeals to developers in the office and at home. "Many of our customers are trading globally 24x7, which means that growing numbers of developers using notebooks are going online to monitor applications and finish development from home or on the road. The Mac notebooks are ideal for that," commented Garland.

The port to Max OS X was straightforward, largely because Kx architected its kdb+ database and applications for easy portability to support new operating system versions quickly. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of kdb+ on Mac OS X are available now. In addition to Mac OS X, kdb+ supports Linux (any version), Windows, and Solaris.