Our people - Alexander Saidullin - leading developer of the MT5 platform

The fact that MetaQuotes is planning to release its new brainchild - MetaTrader 5 trading platform - in the near future is known only to a lazy person or a beginner who has been working in the market for no more than a month. This news was discussed "in the whole world" on every forum, there were open and closed debates, in general, the release was expected with interest. MT5. And finally, we waited...

We couldn't avoid this important topic for the community of traders, so we addressed our questions to the leading developer of the MetaTrader 5 platform Alexander Saidullin.

- Hello, Alexander. The first thing we'd like to know is how did Meta Quotes start out?
- Hello. We started in 2000 and have been developing trading platforms ever since. Our first development was the platform FX Charts for the foreign exchange market. Of course, today it is a weak platform, but at that time it was a modern solution at a reasonable price.

After gaining experience in development and customer feedback, we decided to develop a new platform - MetaQuotes. It was also capable of working on the CFD market, as well as supporting automatic trading.

A year later, the era of the third platform began. MetaTrader. It was also rewritten from scratch. Its performance and functionality have been improved, and the entire platform has once again become more efficient than its predecessor. Futures market was added to the list of served markets, and the client terminal received a new language of trading strategies. MQL2.

Thanks to the modernization resource, MetaTrader was constantly being updated and improved. In 2003 the first mobile terminals were also released (MetaTrader 3 CE и MetaTrader for Palm), which quickly became popular. In the end, all this led to the platform becoming one of the most widely used in the world.

But we did not stand still and began work on a new platform. MetaTrader 4. We spent a long 20 months on this product. However, it was worth it - even before the release of the platform, dozens of brokerage companies announced their switch to it. After the release of MetaTrader 4, the company experienced a heavy load for several months due to the accumulated demand from brokers.

Being traditionally rewritten from scratch, MetaTrader 4 had cardinal differences, which were the reason for the development. Almost everything was new, from the new mobile terminals to the fundamentally new, distributed architecture of the entire platform. The client terminal again became the most functional and popular on the market. It also implemented a "small revolution" - the environment for developing trading strategies MQL4 IDE. With its appearance there was a qualitative leap in the field of development of automated trading programs.

Today we are completing the development of our fifth trading platform. MetaTrader 5. This is another revolution that will allow you to go beyond a and trade on exchanges.

In addition to trading platforms, our company has released a company management system TeamWox. With its help, small and medium-sized businesses can increase the transparency of business processes, raise employee productivity and reduce company costs. This product is also actively marketed and developed today.

- From the history of your company you told, it is clear that you rewrote every new platform from scratch. Why did you take such a radical approach to this issue? Did previous versions become obsolete so quickly that a simple refinement was not enough?
- It's very simple. We are constantly engaged in a full-fledged dialogue with our clients - brokers and traders. We are constantly improving our products according to their requirements. But one day comes the moment when it is either very difficult or simply impossible to implement their wishes in the existing architecture. That's when we start developing a new platform.

In answer to your last question, I can say: yes, if customers ask for features that cannot be implemented in the platform, it means that it is becoming obsolete. And that means that we need to take on a new platform.

- How many programmers have constantly worked on the project to create the MetaTrader 5 terminal? Did you have any newcomers, and if so, what were they responsible for?
- There are 8 developers directly involved in the project, including 3 newcomers. But to specify the professional areas of each of them is difficult for me, I will have to go into details. In general, almost in each area there is a new person, but the core of the team has remained the same since the time of MT4 and MT3.

- Does each team member do his or her own particular thing, or does everyone work together, solving one problem step by step?
In general, each developer has his own area of work-one or more subprojects for which he is responsible. Sometimes individual problems require a brainstorming session to solve the problem quickly.

- What was the biggest problem you solved when programming the terminal? What do you remember most?
- There were many problems, because the entire platform was written from scratch. What was especially memorable was, perhaps, the development of effective algorithms of storing the price history. Practically we have increased the efficiency of storing the price data by tens of times, now the one-minute history for 10 years takes about 10 MB (for MT4 it is about 100-150 MB). It was quite a complex and diverse task, which required considerable effort in its solution.

- Many traders are looking forward to the new MetaTrader 5 terminal. Do you think the expectations will be justified?
We hope so. We're doing everything we can to make that happen.

- And of course everyone is interested in the question, when the day "X" will come and how will the implementation of the platform?
The terminal is now in closed beta testing. In October, testing will be open and everyone will be able to try it out. The official release of the platform is scheduled for the end of this year, but our marketing analysts forbid us from naming the exact date of this event. J The deployment will go as usual: we have a queue for the platform again. I think we will be busy for a few months updating the platforms for our existing customers. But also any other companies will be able to buy platform as soon as it was released.

- Will you continue to support MT4, or is MT5 supposed to completely replace this platform?
— Of course we will support it. We never put pressure on clients, it's only their choice which terminal to work with. Today more than 300 brokers and banks use MetaTrader 4. Many of them are happy with the platform and have not yet decided to switch to MetaTrader 5. So far, they want to use the tried and tested MetaTrader 4. But when they decide that they need to grow and enter new markets, they can buy MetaTrader 5 at a discount. No one should have any worries in this matter, we will support MetaTrader 4 until the last client.

- What major innovations should users of the MT5 terminal expect?
— First, of course, the ability to work on new markets and exchanges. It is very convenient when you can use one account and one terminal to work on both the E and, for example, the MICEX.

Secondly, we fundamentally changed the trading system. Unfortunately, we had no other choice, but traders will have to get used to it.

Third, the new automated trading and MQL5 IDE. With its appearance, automated trading will become even more popular. Mobile trading will remain more or less the same, but we will expand the list of supported devices. I can already say that MetaTrader 5 will be available on the iPhone.

- Your company's survey on how traders would like to see the new terminal received a lot of responses. What was the principle used to select the ideas that were later implemented in the terminal?
— The selection was mostly based on the practical experience we gained in designing, developing and supporting four generations of trading systems. Most of the ideas proposed for development and inclusion in the new platform could be evaluated for suitability immediately, when they were received. We tried to implement the most important and necessary ones in MetaTrader 5.

- Did brokers and dealers make any suggestions for the development of the terminal? Were they implemented?
- Yes, of course. In April 2009, we organized a three-day seminar with our customers, during which we discussed the new platform and gathered wishes and suggestions. A large part of these suggestions were implemented.

- What is the main advantage of the MetaTrader 5 terminal?
- Simplicity. Trading (like life) in itself is not a simple thing, our task as developers is to make it easier and more efficient.

- Do you already have ideas for the MetaTrader 6 terminal?
- Not yet, it's too early.

- Are you planning to introduce something completely new and innovative into trading that would make your terminal even more popular?
- I think that the possibilities MQL5 language will open a new page in trading experts, and trading without direct human involvement.

- How do you see yourself and MetaQuotes in 10 years?
- I don't like to think too far ahead, but I hope that by that time MetaTrader 5 will be in a prominent place in the virtual museum of the company. And there will be something even more advanced on the market, such as MetaTrader 7 or MetaTrader 10.

- What would you like to bring to the terminal that is unusual, new, but which the development of science and technology does not yet allow?
- It's hard to say, we make the most reliable working tools, unfortunately, technical novelty and reliability, as a rule, things are hardly compatible.

- In your opinion, what is the key to the success of the MetaTrader terminal?
- Simplicity and functionality. Our terminals have an extensive set of functions and allow you to do many things that no one else has. On the other hand, our terminals are not like spaceships overloaded with functions. We not only create functionality, but also try to integrate it optimally into the terminal. If you don't need a function, it shouldn't distract you. But if you use it, it has to be easy to access. So far, traders have not complained about the inconvenience, and that's kind of an eloquent evaluation of our work.

- Thank you for the interview, Alexander. We wish you success.
- Thank you for your interesting questions.