CSE New Web Solution Tender Awarded to EFutures
Daily Mirror - Financial Times
1st August 2007

EFutures (Private) Limited, one of Sri Lanka’s leading software companies with over 7 years’ experience in both local and foreign software projects, has won the Tender to Develop, Implement & Maintain the Web, Hosting and Hardware solution for the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE).

“The new CSE web solution that will be designed and developed by EFutures is expected to take the CSE’s web presence to a new level,” stated Rishen Fernando, Director - EFutures. “The solution is a state-of-the-art hardware and networking solution that guarantees the users a wide collection of valuable information related to share trading and investing in the Colombo stock market. The new web solution uses some of the latest hardware and software technologies provided by key partners of the CSE,” added Fernando.

“The web solution will consist of innovative and cutting edge Software Technologies,” the Systems Architect of EFutures highlighted. He pointed out that “Some of these include “database push” technology with application server level cache using db4o, innovative and interactive tickers with AJAX and server-based data Push (Comet-like technology) and JavaScript-based dynamic plotting of graphs. There will also be usage of Web 2.0 technology, interactive charting with Flash, summarized table display with step expansion methodology, Servlet Filter-based compression on the web server to maximize the usage of the bandwidth, request queuing to eliminate server crashes and request timeouts on the client site and many more”. He further explained that database benchmarks show db4o to be up to 55 times faster than Hibernate and MySQL, a popular object-relational mapper and relational SQL database stack.

Speaking on the significant progress EFutures has made over the past year, Fernando stated, “In addition to winning the new CSE Web Solution tender, the past year has also witnessed an unprecedented growth in the number of outsourced software projects that we have acquired from overseas for specific clients. These projects include M3, a CRM that is targeted at mobile users in the USA. It is the first of its kind in the whole world and is therefore a groundbreaking project.” Other US-based outsourced software projects of the Company include Peer Dreams - a web-based financial application that is utilised to raise funds, DrumTable - a social networking system and Mobi Bucks - a mobile payment solution that allows users to utilize their mobile devices to purchase goods and services. Furthermore, the EFutures team is currently in the process of developing a data warehousing software for one of the leading European banks.

Prashan Nagendra – Director of EFutures stated that the Company has opened a Marketing Office in the US in order to acquire more high-end software projects. “We have identified the need to have an office in the US as one of the key elements of marketing our services in the region. As a result of this new office based in San Francisco we expect a significant number of such projects to come through over the next couple of years. Such a presence, backed by aggressive marketing, will benefit not only the Company, but will also be a vehicle to promote the talent and expertise available in Sri Lanka for ICT projects”. He further added that with a presence in the US the Company could double its team within the next one year.

“While we have made great strides in terms of outsourced foreign projects, our local client portfolio has also increased with the completion of several local web and software solutions,” stated Nagendra. “Some of our high profile clients include Board of Investment of Sri Lanka, Asia Capital, UN World Food Programme (WFP) - Child Nutrition Surveillance, UNDP Regional Centre in Colombo (UNDP-RCC), Lanka Canneries (MD) and the President of Sri Lanka” he added. CDAX – which was developed for Asia Capital, was the first online trading system for the Colombo Stock Exchange. With such projects coming in, we are continuously expanding our workforce, which currently stands at 72 team members,” Nagendra added.

Formed in the year 2000, EFutures Private Limited handles offshore software projects and also boasts of one of the most impressive portfolios in the local software industry. The Company has expanded their operations with the obtaining of outsourced software projects from leading local and international companies. In addition to the several banking and financial sector clients of the Company, such as Hatton National Bank (HNB), Seylan Bank, Nation’s Trust Bank, People’s Bank, National Savings Bank (NSB), DFCC Vardhana Bank and HDFC Bank, EFutures has also developed and deployed solutions for several other high profile clients as well.