Success Stories

Gemini Systems is more than a hired gun. We establish lasting relationships with our clients because we are dedicated to one thing, making them succeed. Over the last 16 years, we have designed and redesigned many systems, architectures, and platforms for some highly successful companies.

We are proud to showcase a sampling of these successes below, to help illustrate the depth and breadth of our capabilities.

New York Stock Exchange

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the world's premier securities market, is home to $17 trillion of equity value and trades over a billion shares every day, while providing state-of-the-art technologies in both its trading and regulatory divisions. The requirements for these technologies and their providers include zero fault tolerance, intense speed-to-market, and an extremely high level of effectiveness.

In January, 2001, the NYSE traded over two billion shares in a single day for the first time. This record achievement demonstrated the extreme prowess of the NYSE trading systems supporting the most liquid and fairest marketplace on the planet. As a self-regulatory organization (SRO), the NYSE protects the integrity of the marketplace, member firms and - most importantly - the investing public. With its surveillance, regulatory and enforcement systems, the NYSE is the most active self-regulator in the world.

Gemini Systems is proud to have been providing technology and consultative services to the NYSE since 1989, and our relationship has produced many significant internal and external systems. Among projects that have been publicly disclosed, Gemini Systems architected and developed the NYSE Electronic Filing Platform (EFP). EFP is an extranet infrastructure that provides connectivity to business partners of the NYSE (member firms, listed companies, market data providers, other regulatory organizations, e.g.) via a secure Internet application platform hosting dozens of inter-organizational applications. This platform was first publicized by the NYSE in a presentation at Lotusphere 2000 in Orlando, Florida.

The NYSE is the best and most successful exchange in the world's most competitive financial marketplace. While it strives to reach $100 trillion in market capitalization, support 10 billion share days, and list 10,000 companies across the globe, the New York Stock Exchange will continue to rely on Gemini Systems to provide it with ever increasing value and support.

Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder

The Problem

Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder Inc. (ASB) – a leading global investment firm now part of Natexis Bleichroeder – developed a market offering that would provide U.S. investors access to comprehensive investment research on international companies. They did this by forming a global consortium of partners in markets throughout the world with intimate knowledge of and access to local companies that are the targets of their investment research.  Challenges included how to collaboratively author and publish equity research reports with content provided by analysts across the globe in standardized and timely manner.

The Solution

For ASB, Gemini Systems created the WorldVest platform.  WorldVest is segregated into two secure sites:  one for collaborative research authoring by the global consortium, and one for published research consumption by U.S. customers.  The authoring site uses the powerful workflow capabilities of Lotus Notes and Domino to manage the collection, submission, approval and publishing of investment research. Research originates in 17 locations worldwide and is submitted securely via a Web-based application to ASB's New York headquarters where it follows a defined workflow process for editorial and management approval.  Research is subsequently made available – automatically – to a secure website in both HTML and PDF formats via a WorldVest-branded publishing engine.  The research consumption site supports subscriber services for searching new and archived research documents and newsletters.

Benefits

Benefits of the WorldVest platform include reduced cost and complexity of research creation; rapid automated real-time publishing to the Web without the need for a Webmaster; standard browser-based interfaces for both authors and consumers minimizing training requirements; and powerful search functionality enabling consumers to quickly locate research topics of interest.

The CIT Group

Since 1995, the OS/2-based system has been one of the most cost-effective mission-critical applications developed for CIT Commercial Services. The primary objective of a new version is to provide new employee/client site Web access using standard Internet browser (Internet Explorer) capability, Windows compatibility, and a new technical platform for substantial future enhancement to application functionality.

After careful analysis of several industry-prominent application development models, some with lineage from existing CIT technologies, including the Java EJB model and the CIT C++ architecture, the development team selected an enhanced Microsoft DNA architecture as the basis for development.

A multi-tiered application using Microsoft Visual Basic (VB), Active Server Pages (ASP), Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS), ActiveX Data Object (ADO), OLE/DB or ODBC, COM+ and XML. The DBMS is IBM UDB on a PC-server platform. The architecture partitioning consists of Presentation Services, Business Context Services, Business Rule Services, Data Translation Services, Data Access Services and Database Services.

The application leverages the Gemini Systems Secure Web Enterprise Extranet Platform (SWEEP) to provide a safe object model and application architecture for Internet/Extranet application development. A XML/RPC distributed application framework allows firewall penetration to support sophisticated client applications over unsecured Internet connections.

Solution Features

  • Rich Graphical User Interface
  • Web Enabled
  • Scalable
  • Secure
  • Fault Tolerant
  • Integration with Microsoft Office and Visio
  • Integration with Microsoft Active Directory

Customer Benefits

  • Remote Access
  • Single Signon
  • No training required - look and feel identical to previous system

American International Group (AIG)

Using Sybase technologies, Gemini Systems helped A.I. Credit Corp., a subsidiary of AIG - a leader in the insurance-premium-financing business - design, build and deploy an enterprise-wide pricing and quotation system supporting hundreds of users throughout North America. This gave A.I. Credit's account executives the ability to quickly - in mere seconds - create structured payment plans from thousands of possible scenarios. A.I. Credit relies on this application to process its multi-billion-dollar portfolio.

Solution Features:

  • Automated quote calculations
  • Thousands of scenarios based on a single quotation algorithm
  • Increased speed and accuracy of quotes
  • Consistent pricing across all regional offices

Customer Benefits:

  • Quoting engine integrated into enterprise system
  • Supports multiple rate charts
  • Minimal training required
  • Increased productivity

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company Inc.

Since 1859, The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company Inc. (A&P) has fulfilled the shopping needs of families throughout North America with freshness, quality, variety and value.

With corporate headquarters in Montvale, N.J., A&P operates 427 stores in the United States under 8 retail banners, which include conventional supermarkets, food and drug combination stores, and discount food stores. A&P employs 43,000 associates and annual sales are approximately $11 billion. The company's shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "GAP."

The Problem

A&P maintains a central “item” database to keep track of all items that they order from suppliers and place on store shelves. One of their main challenges is to keep the database up-to-date with faxed changes that come in from item suppliers. The data entry process was labor intensive, tedious, error prone and costly.

The Solution

Gemini designed a solution to accept inbound additions and changes from suppliers by leveraging UCCNet and a custom web-based application leveraging IBM technologies. UCCNet provides a central item repository, a consistent protocol and message format and is increasingly being adopted by the supplier population.

By leveraging IBM’s WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere MQ and WebSphere Business Integration services, Gemini Systems created XML-standard formats to exchange data and implemented customized acceptance and acknowledgement processes.

Benefits

The resulting system provides a single inbound source of items.  Data entry is now performed only as a last resort. Data is normalized and audited as it comes in, thereby reducing errors. Inconsistencies are dealt with in real-time and suppliers are immediately notified of any issues.  As a result, errors are significantly reduced as are the costs of correcting them.