Richard Gissing, CTO of MDXT, commented "The most significant new feature of version 2 of Connect is the addition of support for Level 2 data. Excel users can subscribe to either aggregated or full order books using a single dedicated function for each book type. The orders or aggregated price levels, as appropriate, display on the worksheet dynamically in real time and the display grows or shrinks as the contents of the book change. The orders or price levels are automatically ranked by price from best to worst, and optional function parameters allow the user to determine which fields are shown, to limit the number of rows displayed, and to filter the data to include only orders from specific market makers. We believe that Connect is the only product currently available that offers this functionality to Excel users, made possible by the underlying performance, power and flexibility of the Connect platform.

Users of Connect's C++ or .NET APIs also have access to the same automatically ranked full or aggregated order books, but in addition they can also subscribe to the raw order data coming from the source feeds. In either case, as with level 1 data, they use a single consistent set of functions regardless of the API used by the underlying data source."

Gissing continued "The initial release of version 2 includes support for Level 2 data sourced from NYSE Technology's MAMA platform, with support for data from Thomson Reuters OMM-based sources and Bloomberg sources to be made available shortly.

Other key features include the addition of field-mapping dictionaries, allowing consistent field names to be used when subscribing to data from multiple source platforms if required, and new 'function emulation' features that allow Excel users to use MDXT Connect with existing spreadsheets without the need to convert the subscription and publishing functions to Connect's native ones, significantly reducing the time and effort involved in migrating fr from legacy products.".

"The feedback so far and has been excellent, and we are seeing clients using our latest technology over in-house developed solutions and other vendors' products to achieve: cost savings through rationalisation and replacement of legacy market data applications and infrastructure; improvements in application performance; and application development acceleration " said Paul Watmough, CEO of MDXT.