TD Ameritrade unveils goal planning software
This week TD Ameritrade Institutional announced Roadmap, an online tool that is available on its Veo adviser platform.
Actifi, a Plymouth Minn-based consulting firm, developed the technology, which assists financial advisers in translating their business objectives into concrete tasks.
To use Roadmap, an adviser works with an institutional solutions consultant at TD Ameritrade of Jersey City, N.J., to define his or her goals. Areas of focus are business growth, enhanced expertise, increased profitability, time management and reduced risk.
The application in turn provides specific strategies, tactics and hypothetical outcomes in the form of a report that can be saved, shared and used as part of a firm’s strategic plan.
The application also allows advisers to develop timelines and assign tasks to staffers.
An online Roadmap Accountability Dashboard then allows the adviser to monitor progress as well as create strategies and tasks.
The application and service is free to TD Ameritrade advisers.
Roadmap is also available to firms via an annual subscription from Actifi and advisers can request a free trial.
For more information, visit
TD Ameritrade Institutional and
Actifi online.
In turnabout, Microsoft preps service that will compete with Google Apps
Microsoft is finally playing catch-up to Google, offering online versions of its office-productivity applications.
The Redmond Wash.-based company announced this week that a Web-based version of Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote will, at some point later this year, be available to individuals through its Office Live service.
This solution will allow users of these applications to do what users of Google Docs and Spreadsheets from Mountain View, Calif.-based Google Inc. have been doing for a year and a half — create and edit documents online.
According to the Microsoft Workspace Team blog as well as a press announcement, users will be able to "access, create, edit, share and collaborate" on documents using the new applications.
These online versions will also be linked to the next version of Microsoft Office.
It remains unclear as to whether the new online applications will be free to individual users and completely independent of their desktop counterparts.
Google’s applications are free to individuals, while a business version is available for an annual fee of $50 per seat.
Microsoft plans to release a “private technical preview” of Office Web applications later this year for those who sign up for a beta at the Office Live Workspace site, where Microsoft Office users can collaborate and share documents, though not edit them, online.
The company also reported that it plans to support the Web applications on the Firefox and Safari browsers in addition to its own Internet Explorer.
For more information, visit the Microsoft Office Live Workspace Team
blog. Visit the
Live Workspace site yourself to register for your own free space.
Davis D. Janowski is the technology reporter for InvestmentNews.
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