SAVVIS Communications, a leading global managed IP services provider, today announced that it will provide secured IP VPN connectivity and application...

SAVVIS Communications, a leading global managed IP services provider, today announced that it will provide secured IP VPN connectivity and application services to the Boston Options Exchange (BOX), the new fully electronic U.S.-based equity derivatives market exchange, to connect with its global financial market participants.

“Network connectivity is a priority for BOX as our business depends exclusively on providing efficient, secure, and simple online trading,” said Mike Curran, Chief Operating Officer at the Boston Stock Exchange. “SAVVIS’ Financial XchangeSM will enable our customers to participate in BOX’s marketplace through a high-performance, secure, and reliable network connection.”

In addition to Financial Xchange connectivity, BOX will also deploy SAVVIS’ highly successful FIX Transaction Services (FTS) to deliver electronic orders directly to the BOX. FTS provides a scaleable and cost effective means to provide direct connectivity for order flow without sacrificing performance. In February 2004, BOX opened with its partners the Montreal Exchange and Interactive Brokers offering traders the opportunity for low-cost trading, an electronic auction feature that guarantees price improvement, and a model that functions without a trading floor. BOX has attracted extensive interest and support in the industry including equity partners Credit Suisse First Boston, UBS, Citigroup and JPMorgan. BOX began trading with more than 60 participants and five classes of shares and will rollout the top 250 options classes over the first twelve weeks following its launch.

BOX’ new electronic platform has been fully integrated with SAVVIS’ global network infrastructure to provide customers a cost-effective, secure, and reliable connection to the exchange. By utilizing the SAVVIS network, BOX has successfully extended their reach to financial markets in 45 countries. Clients can now easily connect to BOX from any point on the SAVVIS network without engineering and managing complex and costly connections to BOX points of presence in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. “SAVVIS is a proven network and hosting provider for the top exchanges, ECNs, and Alternative Trading Systems,” said Jack Finlayson, president and chief operating officer of SAVVIS. “We are pleased to assist the BOX in delivering superior network connectivity to its liquidity pool leveraging the reliability, security and performance of SAVVIS services.”


About Boston Options Exchange
The Boston Options Exchange Group LLC (BOX) was established in February 2002 by the Boston Stock Exchange, Inc. (BSE), the Montreal Exchange, and Interactive Brokers Group LLC. BOX is an all-electronic equity derivatives market and was created as an alternative to the existing market models.

For more information on BOX, please visit www.bostonoptions.com

About SAVVIS
SAVVIS Communications (NASDAQ: SVVS) is a global IT Utility that leads the industry in delivering secure, reliable, and scalable hosting, network, and application services. SAVVIS’ strategic approach combines the use of virtualization technology, a utility services model, and automated software management and provisioning systems. This allows customers to focus on their core business while SAVVIS ensures the quality of their IT infrastructure. With its recent acquisition of the assets of Cable & Wireless America, SAVVIS becomes one of the worlds’ largest providers of IP computing services and the world’s third largest provider of hosting services.

For more information on SAVVIS, please visit www.savvis.net