The CTRM Blog

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas reminds me that we have a long way to go as an industry in terms of innovating the technologies used in CTRM.  While exciting new products and services are unveiled this week at the annual electronics industry get together in Sin City, the energy and commodity trading industry continues to plod down the same weather beaten paths in CTRM technology.  We still use terms like “n-tier” and “straight-thru-processing” as if these are the hottest new technologies to appear in the last year; meanwhile, the consumer markets are continually introduced to innovative new products, services and media that are transformative – changing the way people collect, share and consume information and, arguably even changing the very nature of human interaction.

We’re launching the premiere of our “Conversations with Leaders in CTRM Technology” series today, visiting with our first guest, Trip Ray, SunGard Energy and Commodities‘ senior vice president and managing director for the Americas.  In this first episode of the series, presented in two parts, Trip discusses recent developments at SunGard Energy and Commodities and looks forward to what the future may hold for the commodity trading industry and the technologies that serve it.

Note: Please excuse the somewhat variable audio as we are still ironing some technical bugs in our production process.

Part 1

Part 2

A UtiliPoint IssueAlert and CommodityPoint CommodityAlert
By Patrick Reames, Managing Director

The University of Houston’s Bauer School of Business launched their ETRM Systems course in the spring of 2010 with 18 students. Since that time, the program, founded and still lead by industry veteran Ed Bell, has grown steadily and has attracted considerable attention both on and off campus. According to Mr. Bell, “We’ve been pleased and gratified with the success of the program. We’ve seen significant and consistent growth in enrollment each semester, growing from 18 students in our inaugural semester, to 50 the next, then 70, and now more than 100 in this just concluded class.” He further noted that the spring 2012 semester currently stands at 10 MBAs and 121 undergrads, with a couple of weeks left for enrollment.

CommodityPoint has launched a new research project, the 2011 CTRM Vendor Perception Survey. In this latest version of our biennial review of the market’s perceptions of trading and risk management applications and their vendors, we’re expanding our coverage beyond energy and are looking at all commodity trading applications.

So, we would really appreciate hearing your thoughts about, and experiences with, the various products and vendors that support energy and commodity trading activities around the globe.  The short electronic survey won’t take you long to complete and the final report will be freely available for you to check how your views match up with others.

A friend of the blog sent me a link to a Moody’s press release covering the agency’s ratings of OpenLink Financial’s credit status in light of their acquisition by Hellman & Friedman.  Peppered throughout the discussion are references to OLF’s acquisition of Solarc with the note that the deal is expected to close by the end of the year.  I’ve got to say, I’m a bit surprised by this one.  While I had heard rumors that Solarc, along with several other vendors in this space has been for sale, I really didn’t expect that OLF would be the acquiring party.