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Is Matrix in trouble?

Morgan Stanley’s unveiling of its Matrix offering was one of the most high-profile SDP launches of last year. More than two years in the making, with a price tag way into eight figures (and close to nine by some accounts), this was an epic attempt by MS to heave itself up the e-commerce rankings.

And, true to the MS DNA, it was built practically from scratch in-house using low-level components (Flex, Lighstreamer, etc). Hence the price tag and timescale.

So after the initial hullaballoo, the current situation is puzzling. The man behind the Matrix project, Hishaam Mufti-Bey, has left MS to join UBS. And the much-viewed and very Flash-y Matrix microsite has suddenly vanished, replaced by a bland “coming soon” message.

Furthermore, rumours from the market suggest that Matrix may have run into latency and performance problems as soon as they tried to use it for real-life trading.

Should Morgan Stanley have taken the blue pill?

Filed under: Web trading technology |