INVESTMENT-MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY

* TransactTools and Slam Dunk Networks announce a strategic alliance to provide a full trade-connectivity solution to the financial-services. * The Nikko Securities Co. International Inc. selects SunGard's Decalog to support its alternative investment-management operations. * CheckFree announces a further step in enabling its clients to achieve greater transparency in their trading workflow and straight-through processing.

TransactTools, a provider of messaging connectivity, and Slam Dunk Networks, a provider of global extranet connectivity, announced a strategic alliance to provide a full trade-connectivity solution to the financial-services industry using TransactTools' entire technology platform with Slam Dunk's network service. This partnership embraces STP as well as the global adoption of industry standards and protocols.

SunGard Investment Management Systems, an operating group of SunGard, announced that The Nikko Securities Co. International Inc. has selected SunGard's Decalog to support its alternative investment-management operations. SunGard Investment Management Systems is an international provider of investment-management-software solutions for the front-, middle- and back-office activities of global asset-management firms.

CheckFree Investment Services announced a further step in enabling its clients to achieve greater transparency in their trading workflow and straight-through processing, with the addition of FIX 4.1 to the CheckFree APL platform. Concurrently, CheckFree client, Bear Stearns, is making available to its separate-account managers, a solution to trade on a real-time basis that leverages both a new FIX engine the firm has added to its trading desk, and the FIX capability of CheckFree APL.

Macgregor, a global provider of buy-side trade-order-management systems (OMS) and FIX network services, formally announced that Hermes Pensions Management Limited (Hermes) has gone live on the Macgregor Financial Trading Platform (MFTP). The implementation was completed in January with a total of 61 users. MFTP is being used for all types of trading including equity, fixed income, and derivatives.

FlexTrade Systems announced its recent opening of an office in London, the hiring of Bertrand Rassat to head that operation, and the license of FlexTRADER by HSBC Investment Bank. FlexTrade is the developer of FlexTRADER, a quantitativelyenriched equity-trading and order-management system, with a significant client base of institutional users on the buy-side and sell-side, including hedge funds, investment banks and broker/dealers.