Causes of tech snafu with MSSB 3D platform remain uncertain

Technology outages, be they large or small, are nothing new. Today we have the case of the online 3D brokerage platform at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. Last month Bank of America went through one lasting intermittently for several days, as did Research in Motion, which saw outages with its Blackberry services then and back in 2009, and then there was LPL Financial's three-day outage back in 2007. I have always believed that coming clean early on and often, along with providing a reasonable amount of detail tends to work out a lot better for the companies involved. When large outages can affect thousands (if not millions) of users it simply seems to make common sense. After all every large organization is a sieve these days, no matter what policies corporate might have in effect people make phone calls, use web-based e-mail or social media to vent their frustrations. My colleague Andrew Osterland and I have already heard from several brokers and other sources that are in touch with them on the topic of the MSSB technology issues. Sure I suppose most big financial services companies are maintaining even more of a bunker mentality these days with management cringing at the minute by minute market fluctuations affecting their stocks prices. Brokers at MSSB that want to share how the 3D issues are affecting their workaday life please feel free to contact me. I feel certain there are good lessons to be learned by tracing the epidemiology of and tracking the symptomology of what is ailing 3D. ([email protected]) Related stories: iPhone 4S selling out while RIM kissing up Mystery Inc.: Bank of America online outages a puzzler LPL had a three-day outage back in 2007 No time like the present for advisers to prepare for disaster