In an effort to stitch together its disparate software offerings for plug'n'play compatibility, fintech giant SunGard has switched to a platform-independent 'Common Services Architecture' framework based on mainstream open source standards.
SunGard says CSA enables discrete components from its product portfolio to be plugged together to form configurable, composite applications. Previously, the firm had acquired and developed software in distinct business-specific silos.
Ron Lang, chief product officer of SunGard's financial systems business, says product development teams are now using the CSA framework to share intellectual property, best practices and expertise.
"Already CSA is generating cost savings and efficiencies that are helping us to focus more of our development resources on addressing new product and customer requirements. CSA will help our customers benefit from faster time-to-market, easier integration and platform independence of SunGard applications," he says.
CSA is being rolled out across the whole of SunGard's financial systems business, including its offshore development centres and consulting services. The vendor says there are currently more than five hundred employees actively working with CSA.
In development since 2002, the framework has already been used to deploy the vendor's WealthStation workstation for financial advisors and reference data management system, referencePoint.
Lang says SunGard will set up a customer and partner advisory board in 2006 to determine the best ways to extend the collaborative effort to the wider user community.