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Archipelago CTO talks about IM, NYSE merger

28.11.2005
As Archipelago Holdings Inc.'s merger with the New York Stock Exchange nears, officials from the two companies are discussing technology plans for the combined entity. In an interview with Computerworld last week, Archipelago Chief Technology Officer Steve Rubinow talked about the upcoming merger and about how he controls his firm's liberal use of instant messaging.

What is the state of the planned merger with the NYSE? It's going fine. There are a lot of planning activities. We're talking about how we're going to merge technology, who's going to do what, what are the synergies, and how do we identify them so we can take advantage of them as quickly as possible. Until the companies are merged, we can't start executing. We have a whole list of things to do.

What do you see as the most difficult part of the merger? The most difficult part is going to be the people part. It's the classic small, entrepreneurial company -- that's us -- vs. the long-standing nonentrepreneurial company -- them. They've got many more times [the] people than we do. A lot of people [will] have to change.

What is your policy on employees' use of instant messaging? It's similar to our Web philosophy. I've worked at other companies where they issue a Web policy where they say there are certain Web sites you can't go to, so don't even try it. But here we take the approach that everybody here knows what corporate equipment is supposed to be used for. Of course, business to any site is logged, and if we see people [abusing the system], they will be at the top of somebody's list to explain the corporate use policy.

What led you to support IM, which isn't a favorite technology of your peers in some other companies? Many companies still simply say no to IM. We have this philosophy that everyone here is a mature adult, and within reason, they know what kinds of tools they'd like [to use] to do their jobs. We'd like to offer those tools to make their jobs as convenient as possible, and just make sure they work within the [regulatory] constraints.

How important is IM at Archipelago? I can't say it's extremely important. However, it is a mode of communication that our people use with people outside the company. So even if they use it once a month, we have to track every single byte that goes across our wires, and it has to be archived. If we turned it off completely and said no one can ever use it, I don't think it would put a substantial dent in our business.