Forget for a moment that NASDAQ, with listings that include Microsoft, Intel and Cisco, is the barometer of the high-tech industry. Forget for a moment that NASDAQ may hold the blue-chip stocks for the next millennium.
Consider that NASDAQ recently became the first U.S. stock market ever to trade one billion shares in a single day. Consider that, despite this record-setting volume, NASDAQ provided uninterrupted trading on its 5,500 listings from opening to closing bell.
At the same time, NASDAQ was broadcasting continuous, real-time price quotes for all its listed companies, again without interruption or delay. This continuous real-time service extends to the ticker's Web site, nasdaq.com. John Hickey runs the technology behind the technology ticker that processes 1,200 messages and 160,000 shares per second. He's the one who decides which products, designs and resiliency features will keep a key piece of the nation's economy afloat.
He's also the one who will plan the upgrade that will enable the NASDAQ network to handle four billion shares per day by the year 2000. Hickey is the one who makes sure that, even if the market crashes, the network behind the market won't.
