Both firms will jointly focus on the asset management, hedge fund and prime brokerage markets where the size and culture of the participants lends itself well to the outsourcing of voice systems.

Adopting an Atrium/IP Trade ASP solution for pure IP-based trading communications platforms will help financial services firms with smaller dealing floors and limited IT resource to realise the full benefits of a unified communications strategy. It also provides them with the opportunity to expand their disaster recovery capabilities by offering the ability to switch lines should the business need to be moved to another location.

The strategic partnership brings significant scale to Atrium Network and will further strengthen its market reach and offering to financial services firms. Emmanuel Pellé, Director of Atrium Network said, "This strategic agreement is part of our growth strategy to offer convergence technology to global financial services firms. Atrium Network has been building a market reputation for providing community extranet services, corporate internet and intranet technology and dealing desk technology. IP Trade's reputation as providers of secure and reliable IP-based trading turrets will help us strengthen our offering in the trader voice environment both in Europe and in the US and is well timed with the opening of our New York office."

Didier Mattivi, CEO of IP Trade, said, "Atrium Network's global reach and IP telecommunications experience marked them out as the ideal partner to deliver an IP Trade ASP solution. There are a growing number of small trading floors with restricted budgets to be able to develop a unified communications strategy. By partnering with Atrium Network, our clients can benefit from reduced capital expenditure and total cost of ownership while also not having to be worried about having the IT skills on site to manage such technology."

Commenting on the strategic alliance, Max Dupont, Chairman of Quantam SA added, "The new generation emerging in the financial services industry - particularly buy-side and hedge fund firms - face considerable technology challenges and require new, top level tools. We have seen a number of providers come to market with products and services to help these firms and have been impressed by Atrium Network and IP Trade's foresight to undertake this strategic alliance. For firms like us, we can not only enjoy reduced costs and reduced risk, but also have total confidence that these voice systems bring the latest innovations in the area and that the Atrium-IP team offers the required reactivity to manage this service with the best possible efficiency."