Hewlett-Packard Company is pleased to once again be the sponsor of the 2003 edition of the Handbook of World Stock Derivative & Commodity Exchanges. For more than a decade, the Handbook has provided a unique service to the global exchange community and has helped to chronicle the dramatic changes in the world's markets. This has been an incredible year filled with conflict and enormous political, business and economic challenges around the globe. These challenges and conflicts have put enormous pressures on local, regional and global markets, the governance of the industry and the infrastructure in place to support this increasingly global marketplace. While we have witnessed a diminished sense of confidence in many corporate entities, and some aspects of the investment banking community, the exchanges and clearing entities have retained the investment community's confidence. They continue to be the strength behind the finance industry sector, which depends on credibility.
The evolution of the exchanges, brokerages, clearing organisations and financial services organisations continues and is in some ways accelerated by the demands of doing business in this climate. This climate brings new opportunities along with the new challenges. Today, the challenges are more than increasing volumes and lowering margins, or dealing with volatility. The industry finds itself faced with unprecedented issues related to security. Security is viewed on multiple levels, from business continuity to managing risk and protecting the market from fraudulent activities. Rationalisation and globalisation are realities today, which bring with them the requirement to harmonise disparate cultures, environments and operations. In this context, the industry is not only sensitive to costs and return on investment, but also focused on the opportunities to generate revenues and be more of a competitive business entity.
Consolidation of the industry continues, as it is increasingly obvious that the global market cannot sustain the number of individual exchanges and clearing houses that exist today. Alliances, mergers, and acquisitions are changing the landscape of this industry, providing larger liquidity pools and bringing an increased range of products and services to a broader, more savvy investment community. With this we see the rationalisation of infrastructures, the coupling of exchange and clearing entities and the elimination of stovepipe technology developments as the market moves toward real time, customer-centric models.
Hewlett-Packard with its solutions partners has long been a leading provider of products, solutions and services to the global exchange industry. Our focus on this industry, which features subject matter expertise, our broad range of highly scalable and highly reliable platforms, our partnerships with the best-in-class solutions providers and industry consultants, and our global finance industry-specific professional services organisation, differentiates us from any other vendor. We are proud of our contribution to this industry, with the relationships we have established and with the opportunity to continue to provide world-class solutions to the world's exchanges. Sponsorship of the 2003 Handbook of World Stock Derivative & Commodity Exchanges is just one way of continuing to contribute to the future of this industry.