Why FIX rather than a proprietary electronic trading protocol?
To use an analogy, it is rather like working on a trading floor of 20 people each of whom speaks a different language. Learning 19 languages would be a waste of resources and time; therefore most people would only learn the few languages they absolutely needed to conduct their business, tolerating some inefficiency in their work to avoid up front costs. The better solution is to all learn one common language — an Esperanto for financial markets — this is the role that the FIX (Financial Information eXchange) Protocol fulfils.
To use an analogy, it is rather like working on a trading floor of 20 people each of whom speaks a different language. Learning 19 languages would be a waste of resources and time; therefore most people would only learn the few languages they absolutely needed to conduct their business, tolerating some inefficiency in their work to avoid up front costs. The better solution is to all learn one common language – an Esperanto for financial markets – this is the role that the FIX (Financial Information eXchange) Protocol fulfils.
