QuoteSpeed packages real-time market data information with desktop-like interactivity in a pure Web application, providing a complete solution for broker-dealers, brokerage firms, banks, and other institutions that require accurate and timely market data to help make investment and trading decisions. Using the latest in real-time data streaming technology, QuoteSpeed can handle up to 500,000 concurrent users and 1 million messages per second on a single entry-level server. It eliminates the need for installing bulky thick-client terminals, software, or plug-ins to operate, instead requiring only HTML, JavaScript, and a Web browser. Morningstar's equity and fund data, fundamental research, news, and analysis can be accessed through links in QuoteSpeed.

QuoteSpeed is an affordable, low-cost solution that is available as a stand-alone application as well as a module through a variety of Morningstar platforms, including Morningstar Direct, a Web-based institutional research platform; Morningstar Advisor Workstation, a Web-based software platform for financial advisors that integrates client and portfolio data with other desktop systems; and Site Builder, a suite of Web components that can be configured to help investment companies create or enhance their Web properties. In addition, a limited version of QuoteSpeed is available to Morningstar.com Premium subscribers.

"Morningstar has built a reputation for creating user-friendly interfaces and for providing transparent, complete investment data and information," said Brian Delegan, senior product manager at Morningstar. "We believe that QuoteSpeed 2.0 continues this tradition by raising the bar for market data system design. QuoteSpeed will also help our clients to lower their support, hardware, and software costs, eventually allowing them to replace their older thick-client terminals with a browser-based, thin-client application with all of the same capabilities but none of the system overhead."

The intuitive and easy-to-use interface allows users to monitor a list or portfolio of securities via the "Watchlist" feature--a live-quote window that includes complete, real-time quote and fundamental data. Securities from a watch list can easily be dropped onto charts, news, and other windows within the application, enabling flexible monitoring, comparisons and research. QuoteSpeed charts feature intra-day and historical price and volume with candlesticks, OHLC bars, moving averages, Bollinger Bands to monitor volatility, and more. Streaming news from Morningstar and other providers is available in a news reader window.

Real-time alerts based on conditions set by the user are available as a pop-up in the application, a column in the watch list, or via e-mail. Across the application, QuoteSpeed's auto-complete search functionality allows for fast and logical filtering of securities. The pure Web-based interface has desktop-like features including overlapping and customizable windows, multiple workspaces, right-click menus and drag-and-drop interactions.