NORTH AMERICA BYTES

Bank One will fold WingspanBank.com into its online services; Bank of New York improves its depositary receipt Website; Easton Cooperative Bank installs Open Solutions Inc., core processing product; Brokat Technologies debuts its wireless trading software; Stratus Technologies unveils a new series of fault-tolerant servers.

Bank One announced that it will integrate WingspanBank.com's customers and resources into its bankone.com subsidiary, essentially closing the books on the Internet-only bank. Bank One hopes to have the transfer completed by this fall.

"This move will allow Bank One not only to better meet the needs of our customers, but also to accelerate greater efficiency and profitability within all of Bank One's Internet operations," said James Dimon, chairman and CEO of Bank One.

Bank One, the nation's fifth-largest bank holding company with assets in excess of $270 billion, also stated that by folding Wingspanbank.com into bankone.com, the company "eliminates the substantial expense of supporting another brand."

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The Bank of New York (BofNY) has launched a redesigned version of adrbny.com, its depositary receipt Website.

The interactive Website leverages leading edge Internet technology to provide issuers and advisors with a comprehensive, up-to-date source of depositary receipt market data. Recent enhancements to the site include newly designed company profiles that deliver the latest news and depositary price quotes, and interactive charting that allows users to follow nine receipts, stocks, indices and mutual funds at one time.

"Our website gives all market participants access to this breadth of data and provides powerful tools allowing for analysis and customization of depositary receipt information," said Joseph Velli, senior executive vice president and head of Worldwide Securities Servicing at BofNY.

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The Easton Cooperative Bank, North Easton, Mass., has installed a core processing product from Open Solution Inc., a provider of integrated enterprise data processing, Internet banking and e-commerce financial solutions for community banks.

The product, called The Complete Banking Solution (TCBS), replaces the company's old DOS-based processing system. TCBS is an ASP that utilizes Compaq servers and Cisco communications firewall hardware to provide automatic load balancing and fail-over systems. The ASP provides a high level of network and data security, as well as additional functionally to manage wide area networks and delivery systems.

"We were very careful and deliberate in our decision to select OSI as our core-processing provider," said Tom Caron, president and CEO of Easton Cooperative Bank. "They provided the most comprehensive, open and flexible solution in a real-time environment that allows us to handle banking, while they handle the technology."

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Brokat Technologies, a San Jose, Calif.-based supplier of software that enables e-business, has released Brokat M-Investor software, which allows brokerage firms to offer real-time wireless trading to their clients.

Brokat M-Investor, which is being offered to new customers and to the more than 90 broker dealers already using Brokat online trading systems, is designed to extend the features of the company's Individual Investor product through wireless technology.

"Our development of M-Investor technology is another step in enabling user-centric business," said David Luther, vice president of product management for Brokat Technologies. "It allows brokerage firms to offer investors anytime, anywhere access to their portfolios and trading."

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Stratus Technologies has begun shipping its ftServer 5200 system, the first in a family of cost-effective fault tolerant servers.

The new server uses the Windows 2000 operating environment, industry-standard hardware, advanced software availability techniques and integrated service technology to deliver 99.999% uptime. Such reliability has attracted a number of financial companies to the new servers, including Merrill Lynch and the Nasdaq.

"Stratus' fault-tolerant technology already plays a critical role in the day-to-day operation of the Nasdaq," said Robert Bloom, vice president of Telecommunications for Nasdaq. "Now having this same fault-tolerant capability in industry-standard packaging, at precedent-setting price points, is quite a significant advancement. It makes high-availability computing accessible for a wide range of uses."