Only eight software firms currently have met the Exchange's formal Accreditation Policy for "software solutions that have proven functional and technical components" to interact "with the Exchange's systems in Live Service."

The Wombat LSE feed handler will be available on all common market data platforms, including Reuters RMDS, ciServer/Tib Classic, Triarch, Elvin and TCP Basic as well as Wombat's MDRV™ and Wombat Transport platforms. Operating in high-availability mode with built-in, hot-standby fault tolerance, the feed handler supports the leading entitlements systems, including the platform-independent Wombat entitlements server.

"Wombat has got off to a great start in Europe with LSE accreditation within only a few months of establishing a European presence," said Kieran Northime, European business development manager at Wombat. "The feed handler was developed in the Belfast office, which opened in May. It bears testament to the strength and flexibility of the underlying Wombat code base and the very high level of engineering talent we've succeeded in recruiting in Northern Ireland."

Northime continued, "However, the LSE handler is only the beginning. The Euronext feed handler is nearly complete. It will deliver access to the Paris, Le Nouveau Marché, Amsterdam, Brussels and Lisbon exchanges, to be followed by handlers for nine more exchanges before the early part of the fourth quarter of 04."

U.S.-based customer demands and the need to deliver a strong customer support program drove development of the Belfast operation and London Stock Exchange handler accreditation. "A number of our leading U.S. clients over the past 18 months asked us to develop feed handlers for European exchanges," said Ron Verstappen, CEO at Wombat. "I had always envisaged providing support for the European exchanges from within Wombat rather than via a partner company to maximize the continuity of our products and services. Opening the development center in Belfast made this possible and, as you can imagine, with the LSE accreditation, we are very pleased with progress to date."

Danny Moore, Wombat's head of sales, marketing and development, added, "Up to 200 firms in Europe have direct lines to the leading exchanges, more than in the U.S., but many of them access data through vendor systems that are rather sluggish, not to mention an order of magnitude more expensive than Wombat solutions. The initial feedback we've received indicates that the European equity groups are keen to compete with new technology."