Just as your pulse is checked during a routine physical, free cash flow is used as an indicator of a company's health. It equals the cash brought in from operations minus the money needed to pay the bills. Think about leftover money in your checking account after you pay this month's bills.

Investors and analysts see this leftover money as a gauge of a company's ability to perform. It is available for transactions such as handing out dividends and working on new products.

Some argue free cash flow is wrongly overshadowed by the emphasis often placed on earnings. Earnings numbers can be manipulated and don't always tell the whole story -- and earnings don't mean much if there's nothing left over after a company pays its expenses. Even if you bring in a six-figure salary, but no money left after paying the bills, are you in great financial shape?

You don't have to be Einstein to figure out free cash flow. To calculate the number, subtract the company's expenditures and dividends from its operating cash flow.

If the free cash flow is written in red ink, it doesn't necessarily signal curtains. This is common for young companies looking to grow. It also could be a result of heavy investments, which in the long run could be worth a standing ovation.

Home / Markets / Industries / Technology

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

IONA Reduces Compliance Complexity for Financial Messaging Data Services

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DUBLIN, Ireland & WALTHAM, Mass., Jun 18, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) ----IONA(R) Technologies (NASDAQ: IONA), a world leader in distributed service-oriented architecture (SOA) infrastructure solutions for performance-demanding IT environments, today announced a broad set of enhancements to Artix(TM) Data Services, designed to offer customers the broadest and richest financial messaging data services development and deployment platform. The latest release includes the most comprehensive implementation of SWIFTNet(TM) MT Standards Release 2008 (SR2008) and the launch of a new free online validation service. IONA is also announcing new solution offerings for OTC (over-the-counter) derivatives processing and payments straight-through processing (STP) designed to reduce risk exposure and operational costs for financial firms.

Based on Artix Data Services, IONA's open and standards-based development tool for building model-driven data services, the IONA Artix Data Services Standards Libraries include support for over 100 financial messaging standards implementations across 22 standards bodies, offering customers rich, out-of-the-box support for all their financial messaging data services requirements. By deploying IONA's Standards Libraries financial organizations can significantly reduce the occurrence of failed transactions, accelerate time to market, ensure ongoing compliance with new and updated financial standards, and ultimately improve development and operational efficiencies.

Enhancements within the latest release include a SWIFTNet MT SR2008 update with a free online validation service, additional SWIFTNet MX standards for Proxy Voting and Cash Reporting, additions of payments standards for STEP2 and TARGET2, and the addition of DTCC Fund/SERV and MDDL. Combined with Artix Data Services data interoperability enhancements these standards libraries enable institutions to rapidly implement and incrementally deploy reusable financial messaging data services. Please see Standards Libraries for a complete list of supported message types.

IONA's SWIFTNet MT SR2008 Standards Library includes support for over 240 MT message types, 2,000 validation rules and 28,000 test cases. Combined with Artix Data Services, customers can rapidly assess the change impact between SR2008 and prior year messages, while the extensive set of validation rules and test cases vastly improves the quality of data sent between institutions. The new free IONA Validation Service for SWIFT provides an easy testing solution to verify compliance with SWIFT SR2008 syntax and semantics, allowing customers to model, test and deploy compliant messages today well in advance of the November 15, 2008 SWIFT-mandated deadline. Financial firms and application vendors now have a new quality assurance tool to reduce the burden of SWIFT standards implementation and maintenance.

According to Gartner, "Many financial services organizations are re-evaluating their in-house solutions for SWIFT network connectivity and message handling because legacy solutions are increasingly unable to meet their business needs... (Financial services firms) should seek extensible solutions that enable you to purchase what is needed now with future modifications or expansions in terms of functionality, message types and solution areas."(1)

For financial institutions seeking to automate OTC derivatives processes, IONA provides financial messaging data services tools with extensive support for FpML, Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) Deriv/SERV TIW, SwapsWire and SWIFTNet FpML. IONA's Payments Modernization solution offering, provides financial institutions seeking to automate payment processing across legacy and new messaging standards, extensive support for SEPA (Single European Payments Area), ISO20022, SWIFTNet FIN, EBA STEP2 XCT and ECB TARGET2 payments standards. The new solution offerings enable financial organizations to reduce the occurrence of failed transactions, ensure ongoing compliance with constantly changing industry standards, and ultimately improve operational efficiencies with significantly reduced processing risks and associated costs. See Financial Services Solutions Offerings for further details.

Nick Masterson-Jones, director of IT at VocaLink, said: "Our customers in the global banking community require a payments processing service that can help them reduce the complexity and cost of compliance with new SEPA standards while at the same time supporting existing payment standards for domestic and international transactions." Masterson-Jones continued, "We evaluated a number of options on the market and selected IONA's Artix Data Services as a key part of our technology stack having been impressed with the depth of the product and the support offered. Artix provides us with a fast and cost effective solution as part of our message reformatting service."

"The competitive pressure to automate processes and move towards straight-through processing while ensuring compliance with multiple messaging standards for inter-company and intra-company transactions is a costly and significantly time sensitive requirement," said Wayne Meikle, financial services industry sales and marketing director, IONA Technologies. "We're addressing that challenge by offering customers a broad and rich set of industry messaging standards with Artix Data Services, to improve the integrity of the data within their transactions and reduce the cost and burden of compliance with the respective standards bodies."

For more information on IONA's Artix Data Services Financial Standards Libraries, please visit: www.iona.com/products/artix/data_services/standards_libraries.htm.

About IONA

For more than a decade, IONA(R) Technologies (NASDAQ: IONA) has been a world leader in delivering high-performance integration solutions for Global 2000 IT environments. IONA pioneered standards-based integration with its CORBA-based Orbix(R) products. IONA's Artix(TM), an advanced SOA infrastructure suite enables customers to leverage service-oriented architecture to streamline and modernize IT environments. The FUSE(TM) family of Open Source products include supported, enterprise releases of Apache ServiceMix, ActiveMQ, CXF and Camel.

IONA is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, with U.S. headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts and offices worldwide. For additional information about IONA, visit our Web site at http://www.iona.com.

1) Gartner, Inc. "Market Overview: SWIFT Connectivity and Messaging Software Solutions", by Mary Knox, 31 March 2008

SOURCE: IONA Technologies

IONA Technologies David Roy, 781-902-8033 Investor Relations david.roy@iona.com
   or Tara Humphreys, +353 1 637 2146 Corporate Communications tara.humphreys@iona.com

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