Last September was an interesting time to be leading a company with a focus on the capital markets. In the climate of financial Armageddon, lots of clients asked what was going to happen with complex event processing (CEP) technology in turbulent times.
Naturally nobody really knew for sure, and we braced for the worst. I immediately reached out to customers, prospects, and analysts to ask: "What does the financial crisis mean to your business? What applications become more important? Which become less important?" I set out to discover a thesis that looked at the glass half full - violent gyrations of any kind can present opportunity. A neighbor of mine is in the dog food business, and says that when economic times are tough, dog food sales go up. Apparently when families cut back on traveling and vacations and hang around the house more, they are more apt to get a pet.
So I figured it was time to publish some potentially anticyclical trends in the capital markets in an article that appeared in Banking & Technology in December. As we tested the theory in Q4, it turns out some resonated, some didn't, and some new trends emerged as well.
But one thing was a surprise: in Q4, StreamBase registered it's best quarter in the history of the company; during the worst economic climate of its history. The turbulent times, initially, have been *good* for CEP, proving there is definitely some water in the glass.
So although it's fun to come up with forward-looking predictions of trends and implications, it's perhaps more enlightening to see what's actually happening. Over the coming weeks I'll revisit the "5 New Technology Priorities for Turbulent Markets" and discuss how we're doing - so far.
Coming up first this week - the Increased Need to Automate.
