Firms that develop, integrate, and deploy FIX-based electronic trading systems are invited to participate in this latest beta.

The Wisconsin-based startup has been operating in stealth mode for over a year, developing what it terms "the first fully-featured, .NET-based, integrated development environment for FIX testing."

"We're excited to be able to offer this first look at the Visual FIX system to participating firms," said Russ Curry, CEO of Assimilate Technology. "The system brings together several unique technologies that we haven't seen deployed in the FIX testing space yet, so we're looking forward to working with our beta customers and hearing their opinions about the product."

The Visual FIX system is designed to help quality assurance, software development, and connectivity personnel significantly improve the efficiency of their testing process. The system's visual workflow editing environment allows programmers and non-programmers alike to rapidly construct complex message processing workflows to simulate client or server systems.

The open, component-oriented system also provides dynamic code import facilities that allow firms to seamlessly incorporate their own .NET components into its visual environment. "We recognized that many firms have proprietary needs that simply can't be accommodated by a closed system," Curry said, "so we designed Visual FIX around the concept of making it as easy as possible for customers to integrate their own .NET code into the system."

Firms that are interested in participating in the beta test of Visual FIX can download a beta program application from the company's website at http://www.assimilate.com.

Assimilate Technology Inc. was founded in 2008 and specializes in the development of software technologies that help financial firms improve the efficiency of their electronic trading operations.