The winners of the Windows in Financial Services Developer Awards, announced in the last issue, received their awards at a ceremony during a cocktail reception at the 5th Annual Microsoft Financial Services Developer Conference in New York in April.

A quick recap, the award winners included Merrill Lynch with assistance from Advantage Professionals for a data services framework that delivers customer data to internal business users. The framework determines data sources in real-time and in some cases accesses data from several sources concurrently, and applies relevant business rules to the data to execute data requests.

Allstate with assistance from Microsoft Consulting Services won an award for a new quote estimator tool that is more scalable, efficient and interactive than other tools in the market today. It was built using the latest technologies, including ASP.NET AJAX, originally codenamed Atlas, which was released in beta last year.

Credit Suisse received the award for its alternative investments technology platform, which serves Credit Suisse’s multi-faceted alternative investments business globally, while at the same time addressing specific requirements and subtleties. The platform, which uses SQL Server 2005, as well as SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), streamlines the front-to-back workflow for hedge funds and fund of hedge funds investments.

Wachovia with assistance from Microsoft Consulting Services received an award for the upgrade of the information reporting functionality of Wachovia Connection, Wachovia’s online cash management portal serving all wholesale customers. The robust, flexible solution is capable of integrating multiple data sources across disparate platforms, and displaying the information in a rich user environment.

A fifth award, which was not previously announced in the last issue, was given to JPMorgan with assistance from Advantage Professionals for a migration project through which JPMorgan Hedge Fund Services (JPMHFS) migrated the Sybase 12.5 servers that support several of its proprietary applications to SQL Server 2005. The new technology offers JPMHFS a faster, more robust database platform that is scalable and allows for the development of new features in rapid timescales. Its support for XML and Web services made it a good choice for integration with other technologies and it is making high-availability clusters and disaster recovery simpler to achieve.

The winners involved in the Wachovia project from left to right are: Rick Hines, Jack Case and Doug Falcone of Microsoft, Sue McBride, Laurence Leinbach, and Ben McCoy of Wachovia, Frank Fragapane of Microsoft and Gary Stansell and Todd Danner of Wachovia. They are receiving their award from Renee Wijnen Caruthers of Windows in Financial Services and Bill Hartnett of Microsoft.

Suhasis Ghosh (center), application owner and lead developer for the IMT Web Interface Team at Allstate, and Microsoft’s James Wang, representing Microsoft Consulting Services, receiving the Allstate award from Renee Wijnen Caruthers.

Chuck Tichnor and Jerry Hawk from Advantage Professionals with Kumar Vadaparty, Suresh Nair, and Guy Pujol from Merrill Lynch, accepting the award for Merrill Lynch’s data services framework from Renee Wijnen Caruthers of Windows in Financial Services and Bill Hartnett of Microsoft.

Subhra Bose, director of technology strategy & architecture who represents Prime Service, Alternative Investments, Holt & Research in the Investment Banking CTO Architecture Council, receiving his award from Renee Wijnen Caruthers.

JPMorgan Chase’s Steve Godino and Joe Williams from Advantage Professionals accept the award for their JPMorgan Hedge Funds Services server migration project.