Advent Software rolls out version 3.0 of APX

Advent Software Inc. launched version 3.0 of its APX portfolio management platform this week. APX, first launched four years ago, is in use with 600 clients in 30 countries.
So what’s new in this version? A reporting framework that employees Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, expanded data access, as well as improvements to the system’s internal client relationship management features.

I spoke with Michele Holton, director of product marketing at Advent last Friday, prior to the announcement.
“Those with in-house IT staff have been salivating for this,” she said.

“Within SQL there are a lot of report-generation tools and we’ve embedded those inside of APX so advisers can use them to create and customize their own reports. We have over 200 standard reports available within APX,” said Ms. Holton.

Version, 3.0 was in beta with 10 Advent clients during its testing period, eight of them Stateside and two of them EMEA users (that stands for Europe, Middle East, Americas for those that didn’t know). APX 3.0 is now in production use with 20 clients according to Ms. Holton.

For existing APX clients version 3.0 is a free software upgrade but since there are significant technical enhancements to this it can take two to five days or so for the upgrade.

As is the case for most such complex software platforms a simple ballpark price can prove elusive.
“APX offerings are so broad,” Ms. Holton explained the other day, “for an onsite offering the price is based on AUM and the number of seats — that can range anywhere from around $15,000 to a few hundred thousand [dollars] a year.”

She added that the back office services on-demand solution pricing is per portfolio.

I asked for a breakdown of the 600 clients referred to in the press release. Seems that 281 are back office services on-demand clients, while the majority, 326, are onsite or deployed installations.
“Those tend to be some of the larger institutional clients that want greater control,” Ms. Holton said.

For more information visit Advent