FD announces the formation of FD Labs

First Derivatives plc
(“FD” or the “Company”)

Formation of FD Labs

FD (AIM: FDP.L, ESM: FDP.I), a leading provider of software and consulting services, announces the formation of FD Labs, its new R&D division based in Ottawa, Canada.

Collaborating with FD’s global product teams, the mission of FD Labs will be to identify, innovate and develop new software product opportunities in key emerging areas such as SaaS analytics, Fast Data visualisation and the Internet of Things. It will also focus FD’s global expertise in embedded software, programming languages, Cloud/SaaS environments, User Experience and IDE technology, machine learning and predictive analytics.

FD is also pleased to announce that industry luminary Dave Thomas and his long-time collaborator Dr. Brian Barry are both joining FD and will play key roles in advancing its innovation agenda. Dave will become FD’s Chief Scientist with responsibility for new product strategy, technology outreach and evangelism. Brian will become Head, FD Labs with responsibility to manage and grow the Labs.

Dave Thomas commented: “The power and elegance of kdb+ has been understood for many years in the world of high performance finance. FD now has a unique opportunity to lead the way and expand the reach of kdb+ into exciting new markets such as the Internet of Things, Cyber Security, Visual Analytics and Pharma.”

Brian Conlon, Chief Executive Officer of FD, commented: “Industry dynamics are moving in our favour as enterprises embrace streaming analytics, which plays to the strengths of kdb+. We are excited to have two of the IT industry’s most respected pioneers on our team helping us advance the development of the world’s leading structured database with a feature-rich enterprise platform that makes the technology straightforward to develop and manage.”

Enquiries
For further information please contact:

First Derivatives plc
+44(0)28 3025 2242
www.fdtechnologies.com

Brian Conlon, Chief Executive Officer
Graham Ferguson, Finance Director
Ian Mitchell, Head of Investor Relations

Investec Bank plc (Nominated Adviser and Broker)
+44 (0)20 7597 4000

Dominic Emery
Carlton Nelson
Sebastian Lawrence

Goodbody (ESM Adviser and Broker)
+353 1 667 0420

Linda Hickey
Finbarr Griffin

Walbrook PR
+44 (0)20 7933 8780

Paul Cornelius / Nick Rome / Helen Cresswell / Sam Allen

About FD
FD is a global technology provider with nearly 20 years of experience of working with some of the world’s largest finance, technology and energy institutions. FD is the developer of the world-leading database technology kdb+. FD employs over 1,400 people worldwide and has operations in London, New York, Stockholm, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney, Palo Alto, Toronto, Philadelphia, Belfast and its headquarters in Newry.

Dave Thomas, Chief Scientist, FD
Dave is co-founder and past Chairman of Bedarra Research Labs (BRL), creators of the Ivy visual analytics workbench. Prior to this he was founder and past CEO of Object Technology International (OTI), becoming CEO of IBM OTI Labs after its sale to IBM. With a distinct ability to translate research into competitive products, he is known for his contributions to Object Technology including IBM VisualAge and Eclipse IDEs, Smalltalk and Java virtual machines. Dave is a renowned keynote speaker with an impressive breadth of business experience and technical depth. He is a thought leader in largescale software engineering and a founding director of the Agile Alliance. An Association of Computing Machinery Distinguished Engineer with close links to the R&D community, Dave is an adjunct research professor at Carleton University in Canada and has held past positions at UQ and QUT in Australia. He has been a business and technical advisor to many technology companies including Kx Systems. Dave is founder and Chairman of the YOW! Australia and Lambda Jam conferences, and is a GOTO Conference Fellow.

Dr. Brian Barry, Head, FD Labs
Brian is co-founder and past CEO of Bedarra Research Labs. Prior to this he held several executive positions at Object Technology International (OTI) including Chief Scientist and CTO. He became President of IBM OTI Labs after OTI’s acquisition by IBM and later succeeded Dave Thomas as CEO. Under their leadership, OTI developed the Eclipse Platform, J9 Java VM, IBM VisualAge for Java, and IBM VisualAge MicroEdition for embedded systems. Brian’s published research reflects a broad spectrum of interests spanning simulation, Object-Oriented applications, systems integration, embedded systems and software engineering. He co-authored the ANSI Smalltalk standard, and has been an active participant in research granting boards and conference committees. Brian has a long history of involvement with open source software, and is a founder of both the Eclipse Foundation (www.eclipse.org) and Open Health Tools (www.openhealthtools.org), where he served as CTO from its inception until 2014. He holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from Queen’s University.