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It's time to start thinking about where you want your processing power. And your data. Traders aren't the only ones thinking about this; in the computer manufacturing industry, the assumption is that processing power will stay on the desktop, while data will become the province of servers on the Internet. Hence, bigger and faster computers are necessary, even if their prices must fall.
Software vendors aren't so sure. Microsoft, for one, is covering both bets: soon you'll be able to send instructions to Word In Redmond, where they will be interpreted and executed, results being sent back to your display at the office or home. In this mode, your computer could be nothing more than a terminal.
What about vendors to traders? Will they stop selling programs and start selling subscription access to their logic and displays? Retail traders can see some of both worlds now. Equis International offers many features of MetaStock on its Website. Omega Research has announced TradeStation.com but hasn't delivered it yet.
Though the situation is fluid, some general guidelines are clear. Regarding data, if you can depend on your software vendor's data source and it has all the data series you need, it'll probably be worth your while to use it. Escaping data maintenance can be a great benefit. That said, most, but not all, data vendors have undue reliance on their raw datafeeds and too few staff devoted to error-checking. Being engineers (or accountants), they want the automated systems to do the work and don't believe in hiring staff to make fixes. CSI is a blessed exception, employing staff 24 hours a day to constantly cleanse and refresh their data. It ain't cheap, but it's the real deal.
For technical traders, particularly those who want and need to implement their ideas in code or graphically, the fact is that no one has yet demonstrated a Website where your code or graphic interaction with the chart approaches the facility of the current in-RAM programs. If you want to do your own screening, customizing the display, creating your own indicators, building and testing your own trading systems, and doing loss/risk/money management analysis, you're going to be running the niche software that trading software does. While canned screening and analysis is already rampant on the Internet, often free and occasionally well-done, those Websites facilitating your ideas are uncommon, other than, say, chatrooms.
Finally, there is Big Brother. The go-round over the FBI's Carnivore initiative, its E-mail tapping program, and the NSA's resolute fight against encryption are clear evidence of threats to the integrity and privacy of centralized processing and content storage. If the government can do it, private parties probably did it first (and taught the government). Not to be paranoid, but why take chances with screens, systems, and portfolio information?
Maybe Omega Research, for one, will pull a rabbit out of its hat and demonstrate EasyLanguage implementation via a Website, but judging by the intricacy of creating TradeStation over the years, I doubt it will happen soon. Thousands of new traders will be introduced to technical analysis at Websites, but when they start to trade on their own, they will be smart to buy the best hardware, software, and data they can find to put on their own machine.
