IBM SUPPORTS STAC COUNCIL AND STAC LAB

Supplies lab with x86 and Cell blades, WebSphere Front Office CHICAGO - FUTURES INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION EXPO - November 29, 2007 - The Securities Technology Analysis Center (STAC®) today announced that IBM has become an official Innovation Sponsor for the Manhattan-based STAC Lab and has joined the STAC Benchmark Council. The STAC Lab is a research facility where end-user firms can try out new technologies under simulated trading conditions. It contains advanced load-generation mechanisms, precise timing equipment, market data, and test tools pre-integrated with many of the products to be tested. As an Innovation Sponsor, IBM will provide the lab with its latest BladeCenter systems and IBM WebSphere Front Office for Financial Markets Version 2.0. IBM will, in turn, use the lab as a foundation for testing workloads such as market data, analytics and execution for financial markets. IBM's multi-year commitment to the STAC Lab will enable customers and partners to design high-performance solutions using IBM products and to test those solutions using official STAC Benchmarks. STAC will add several IBM products to its "Racked-and-STAC'd" list, the inventory of hardware and software products with which STAC is ready to support customer projects. This includes IBM BladeCenter servers, such as the BladeCenter QS21 server based on the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.) ® architecture, as well as WebSphere software. It also includes IBM System x servers, which set new records for two-socket servers under key Reuters Market Data System workloads in recent STAC testing. As a member of the STAC Benchmark Council, IBM will contribute to specifications under consideration by the Council's participating trading firms. The Council is a group of trading firms and vendors who are defining industry-standard ways of measuring latency, capacity, power efficiency, and other key performance attributes of solutions used in the trading process. Announced on Sept. 17, 2007, the Council includes a number of global trading firms such as Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, and HSBC. Peter Lankford, Director of STAC, said: "We are excited to have IBM's support for the STAC movement. IBM products support high-performance workloads throughout the global capital markets, and IBM continues to innovate in both hardware and software. We look forward to helping securities firms take advantage of IBM's products to improve trading performance." "IBM is pleased to engage STAC to make IBM's proven technologies available to firms looking to take their front office investments to the next level," said Thomas Swett, vice president, global financial services sector, IBM. "Financial markets firms are constantly looking for ways to tune their environments and gain advantage in high velocity trading and analytics that drive value for clients. IBM is a leader in technology innovation for trading and market data, and we support industry efforts to establish baselines to measure speed and performance of market data, analytics and execution." STAC and all STAC names are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Securities Technology Analysis Center, LLC. IBM is a trademark of IBM Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Cell Broadband Engine and Cell/B.E are trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment in the United States, other countries, or both. All other company/product names and service marks may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.