CME Group Joins The Linux Foundation

CME Group Joins The Linux Foundation

World’s largest derivatives exchange uses Linux to help manage trades in interest rates, equity indexes, currencies, and commodities

SAN FRANCISCO, September 23, 2008 – The Linux Foundation (LF), the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that CME Group, the world’s largest and most diverse derivatives exchange, has become a member of the Foundation.

CME Group has been recognized as one of the financial services industry’s biggest users of Linux. It first realized the benefits of Linux in 2003 when it reported that by using the operating system it would save significant costs, increase reliability, and dramatically reduce the round-trip time of a trade transaction. Since then, broader use and newer versions of Linux coupled with match engine and application improvements have helped continue that trend. In an industry where low latency is paramount, this reduction extended the fundamental savings of Linux by enabling more transactions to be made in a given day.

By joining the Linux Foundation, CME Group will be able to collaborate with key Linux developer and vendors. CME Group’s Vinod Kutty, associate director and head of distributed computing R&D, will become chair of the Linux Foundation’s End User Council. The Council is a group of the largest Linux end users who use the forum to collaborate and educate themselves on technical, legal and community efforts.

Kutty will also speak at the Linux Foundation’s End User Summit October 13 – 14, 2008, in New York where collaboration visionaries will share insights on the Linux development process. For more information on the Summit, please visit https://www.linuxfoundation.org/events/enduser.

“Our Linux Foundation membership allows us to move beyond just being users of Linux to being participants in the direction of this important technology,” said Kevin Kometer, Managing Director and Chief Information Officer of CME Group. “Joining the Linux Foundation and being deeply involved in Linux will also help the exchange determine the future use of our own technology. We’re looking forward to working closely with the Linux community to navigate this future.”

“The stability and flexibility of Linux fits so well in the financial world. It’s an extremely demanding environment,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation. “We’re looking forward to CME Group’s contribution to Linux Foundation events and to vendor and developer understanding of what kinds of requirements large financial institutions have of Linux.”

In 2007, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) traded a record 2.2 billion CME and CBOT contracts worth more than $1.2 quadrillion.

Building on the heritage of CME, CBOT and NYMEX, CME Group serves the risk management needs of customers around the globe. As an international marketplace, CME Group brings buyers and sellers together on the CME Globex® electronic trading platform and on trading floors in Chicago and New York. CME Group offers the widest range of benchmark products available across all major asset classes, including futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities, metals, and alternative investment products such as weather and real estate.

About the Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the Linux Foundation sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and is supported by leading Linux and open source companies and developers from around the world. The Linux Foundation promotes, protects and standardizes Linux by providing unified resources and services needed for open source to successfully compete with closed platforms. For more information, please visit www.linux-foundation.org.

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