TMCnet News
Cisco's Virtual 'Ding-Ding-Ding'By DAVID R. BUTCHER, Assistant Editor, Customer Interaction Solutions The president of Nathan's Hot Dogs, Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James, the Marines Toys for Tots Foundation, tennis star Serena Williams, former "Sex and the City" bombshell Sarah Jessica Parker, unfunny comedian Jimmy Fallon, New York City police and fire departments post-9/11, India Information Technology Minister Pramod Mahajan — and now Cisco Systems, this being your standard SAT-type question: What do they all have in common? Each has rung NASDAQ's opening bell to mark the beginning of the trading day. (Mr. Potato Head once rang the closing bell.) From 2,500 miles away, and with a three-hour time difference, Cisco CEO John Chambers and 2,000 Cisco employees today "virtually" opened The NASDAQ Stock Market from the company's San Jose, Calif., headquarters, marking the first time in NASDAQ history the ringing of the notable bell has occurred outside of Manhattan. Cisco and NASDAQ together re-created the MarketSite to include both a replica of NASDAQ's famous blue video wall that tracks trading on the exchange and an electronic podium to mirror the NASDAQ opening and closing bell ceremonies. Using a high-speed, dual-path and secure private Internet Protocol (IP) network, Cisco's IP networking equipment and software, data were routed from NASDAQ's New York MarketSite to Cisco's Silicon Valley virtual MarketSite, transmitting NASDAQ trading information from the East Coast to the West Coast. From there, display servers processed and formatted real-time ticker and price-quote information. The data were displayed on a giant video wall consisting of 32 monitors. Cisco's president and CEO, joined by his employees and NASDAQ President and CEO Bob Greifeld, "rang the NASDAQ bell" from San Jose at 6:30 a.m. PDT, signifying the opening of trading for the day and in celebration of the close of Cisco's 20-year anniversary. Said Chambers: "The NASDAQ virtual open is a prime example of how the network and Cisco technology can enhance business productivity — in this case bringing millions of investors together with leading companies regardless of time or physical location of the market." By design, NASDAQ is a decentralized electronic market that can be opened anywhere. On average, the NASDAQ processes approximately 20,000 stock market transactions per second and nearly 12 million trades per day, according to the corporate fact sheet. The market open and market close are the busiest times in the trading day, in which NASDAQ's systems handle transaction peaks in excess of 20,000 transactions per second. For more information about Cisco's NASDAQ virtual market open, including event photographs, Webcast details and a Q&A with Chambers, visit http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2005/hd_080505.html. ----- David Butcher is Assistant Editor of Customer Interaction Solutions. To see more articles by David Butcher, please visit: http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/columnists/columnist.aspx?id=100008&nm=David%20 R.%20Butcher |