Largest Provider of Commercial Smalltalk
Cincom is one of the largest commercial providers of Smalltalk, with twice as many customers and partners as other commercial providers.
Tom Nies
Soops
Soops used Cincom Smalltalk™ to become the market-leading software development company for the power-trading market
Soops is a dynamic software development company founded in 1992 by two brothers: IJsbrand and Albert Kerssies. Soops was the first company in The Netherlands fully dedicated to object technology. A choice informed by the fact that both founders quickly became convinced that object technology best translates the complex and changing needs of organizations into working ICT-systems. At the end of the nineties, Soops concentrated its expertise on the financial services industry. During this period Soops developed a trading system for stocks. Realizing that the generic character of the system meant that the system could easily be applied to other markets, enabled Soops to transform into a company specialized in real-time order transaction systems for any market. At the same time, Europe’s energy exchanges started to bloom, opening up an opportunity for Soops to establish a foothold in a rapidly developing market. Soops’ Eurolight suite of exchange systems, developed for the APX Group, contributed to this exchange’s business success and enabled the Amsterdam Power Exchange to win several awards. Notably, the APX Group was named the Energy Exchange of the year in 2005 and 2008. Currently, Soops Group still focusses on object technology. Throughout the years, Soops has developed into a company specialized in real-time order management and transaction systems, clearing systems and market operator tools. Soops mission is to become the ICT-supplier of choice for the most important energy exchanges. Soops is one of only a few software development companies fully dedicated to the power trading market. Its decision to use the Cincom Smalltalk development environment from the outset has been key in the company’s ability to seize new business opportunities. Over the years, Soops has conducted in-depth evaluations of the alternative technologies, in terms of comparative speed of development. Developer strategy can no longer be based on brand alone but on performance and the right application for the task. In a climate where there are increasing reports of failed Java and C++ projects, Cincom Smalltalk is viewed by Soops as the most reliable solution. With its background in the cash and derivatives markets of Amsterdam, Soops initially specialized in real-time order management and transactions systems, clearing systems and market operator tools. Its solutions included the creation of new systems from scratch and the migration of legacy systems. Its expertise in the latter is extensive, ranging from “big bang” introductions to gradual module-by-module replacements. The Managing Director at Soops, comments:“We realized early on that Smalltalk is the fastest way to develop, and the more complex the project, the easier it became with Smalltalk.”The turning point came when the company spotted the opportunity to secure business in the fast-growing energy market.
“The speed of development when using Smalltalk and the ability to quickly replicate systems, put us in a very strong position to catapult ourselves into this highly lucrative market.”Soops changed its business strategy to focus all of its resources on developing energy exchange systems and changed its business model to focus on developing applications that can be expanded and transferred into other markets. The company is now one of only a few fully dedicated software development companies for the power-trading market.
