Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for inducing transactions between buying and selling parties in the electronic commerce of financial instruments. An electronic messaging platform is used to receive transaction proposals that are formatted according to financial industry protocols. The transaction proposals are sent as electronic messages to prospective counterparties. A person-person contact link is attached to each sent transaction proposal message. In response to activation of the person-to-person contact mechanism on a particular transaction proposal by any recipient, the system sets up an instant messaging session between the sender and the recipient. The instant messaging session may additionally be open or accessible to members of pre-designated coverage teams associated with the sender and/or the recipient. The information content of protocol-governed messages can also can be augmented by attaching additional information files to the messages.

Abstract: A local-area-network based system for shared remote access or control of application programs in one or more computers by one or more other computers is provided having particular utility for trading rooms of securities firms, wherein each operator position is permitted the capability to access any of a number of information services. Information services, each of which communicates with a personal-computer-based video source running an applications program specific to that information service, are represented on a local-area network as nodes called servers. Each server runs the application program, unmodified, together with other terminate-and-stay-resident software which periodically broadcasts a video message, the content of which is the change of the application program display screen contents since the time of the last broadcast.