Electronic marketplace vendor Connamara Systems and an engineering team from software and technology provider Thoughtworks have been honored with awards from the FIX Trading Community standards group for their roles in establishing the QuickFIX Open Source Project.
The FIX Trading Community is recognizing Connamara and Thoughtworks for the impact their efforts had upon the global trading community, according to a statement from the organization.
The is a non-profit industry-driven standards body for global financial trading, responsible for maintaining the Financial Information eXchange (FIX), which is used in over 150 countries as the primary protocol for electronic trading.
Launched in 2002, QuickFIX was the industry’s first open source FIX engine, and provides free FIX protocol connectivity to market participants. QuickFIX quickly became a “standard within a standard,” according to the statement, and was a key driver in the growth and adoption rates of the FIX Protocol.
QuickFIX was created by Oren Miller of Thoughtworks and a small Thoughworks engineering team and Jim Downs, founder of Connamara systems, officials say. Miller, Downs and the original engineering team were all honored with awards at the FIX Trading Community Americas regional meeting in Chicago, which fell on the 20th anniversary of the onset of the FIX protocol.
“The simplicity, quality, and utility of QuickFIX has withstood the test of time,” says Jim Nouthey, senior partner at LaSalle Technology Group and co-chair of the Global Technical Committee of the FIX Trading Community, in a written statement. “Every time I go to a new part of the world, be it in Africa, Latin America, or Asia to teach the FIX Protocol, I ask for a show of hands of those using QuickFIX. Invariably, about three quarters of the audience will raise their hands.”
The contribution to the industry by Downs, Miller, and Dan Goodwin, the project sponsor, “cannot be understated,” Nouthey adds. “It was a critical success factor for the FIX standard and it is one of the most successful open source projects ever.”
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