XML to help human interaction

XML to help human interaction

XML is the most important technology to enter the marketplace in the last ten to 15 years, but human interaction is still necessary, investment bankers and research analysts have warned.

Jonathan Gittos, former investment banker and founder of financial software developer Marketpipe praised the benefits of XML, the widely hailed computer-based language predicted to overtake HTML – currently the most popular language for displaying information on the internet.

eXtensible Markup Language, or XML, is a method used to add structure and context to unstructured information and allows more relevant and quicker searches to be done on the internet once data has been tagged.

But, Gittos went beyond pure praise of XML and what it will signify for all financial professionals, users and investors. He said the most important by-product of XML would be enhanced communication between people.

‘I think half the problem of the failed technology industry is partly to do with businessmen and technology guys thinking they could replace salesmen with technology and web pages,’ Gittos told a gathering of finance professional at an XML event at the Barbican organised by researchsummary.com, an investment banks research portal.

‘My hippy message is that people like talking to each other. Anything that is to work must be like the medieval marketplace,’ he added.

Figures produced by Sean Weir, capital markets partner at Accenture, further highlighted the urgent need to improve the quality and quantity of information analysts and investors receive.

In a straw poll conducted over the summer by Accenture, fund managers said 90% of the research they received went unread while 65% of research received by email was unsolicited. On average a fund manager receives around three feet of reports and over 300 emails a day.

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Q&A: the benefits of XML

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