Microsoft has announced the partnership with ICICI Securities to launch a rich and intuitive online trading experience on ICICIdirect.com.
ICICIdirect.com is a pioneering online trading portal from ICICI Securities with over 2 million customers. Built completely on Microsoft’s Silverlight 4.0 platform, the portal harnesses the advantages of Rich Internet Application (RIA), giving online investors and traders a personalized, intuitive and immersive end-user experience.
Today, with a large share of users opting for online transactions, ICICIdirect.com’s initiative to introduce Rich Internet Application (RIA), in addition to standard online version for financial trading, strengthens their position as a pioneer in the online trading market.
Keeping in mind the portal’s consumer facing and mission critical nature, ICICI direct.com chose Silverlight 4.0 to strengthen their online presence primarily due to its Rich Internet Application capabilities. “Considering how quickly the web and our online customers are evolving, the need for a rich user environment is fast becoming a factor critical to success. With Silverlight 4.0, ICICIdirect.com will easily be able to fulfill the diverse needs of our customers by offering a rich and highly productive operating environment” said Yagnesh Parikh, Senior VP - IT, ICICI Securities Ltd on the occasion of the launch.
ICICIdirect.com has predominantly remained on Microsoft Technologies from a user interface perspective. The traditional online portal currently in use, is built using ASP/ASP.Net technologies (Web 2.0) and supported by a thick client application for users who want a localized application on their desktop.
While building the RIA version using Microsoft Silverlight, the key benefits that ICICIdirect.com saw in this transition, were familiarity of their development team on Microsoft Technologies, the scope for innovation from a Product Roadmap perspective and ongoing support on the technology that would be easily available. “With the network of online trading customers consistently increasing, a feature rich interface was emerging as the vital differentiator and we were confident that Silverlight 4.0 would be able to create this vivid and immersive experience for ICICIdirect.com users. We are extremely excited that ICICIdirect.com’s customer base are the first to experience the power of Rich Internet Application that Silverlight 4.0 brings to an online platform” said Moorthy U, General Manager, DPE, Microsoft India.
Microsoft’s Silverlight 4 delivers a full suite of powerful features to application developers, bringing innovative platform capabilities to browser-based experiences. Silverlight provides an ideal platform for developing and deploying modern business applications for both internal and end-user applications on both sides of the firewall. In addition, Silverlight positions a powerful platform for creating engaging, interactive user experiences for Web, desktop, and mobile applications when online or offline..