In 1993, Whitney and Lustgarten joined to commercialize the k programming platform Whitney had created after building the
A+ language and other trading systems at
Morgan Stanley. The purpose of the software was to access and explore large data volumes in financial services computer systems. Initially, Kx Systems had an exclusive contract with
Swiss global
financial services firm
UBS to provide them with the K language. In 1998, the contract with UBS expired and the firm launched the
kdb+ database. As part of
kdb+, Whitney developed a new language named
q that operated with k and uses English keywords. In 1999, the company reached a marketing agreement with a
Northern Ireland based firm, First Derivatives.; it opened an office in
Manhattan in 2002,
Germany and
Japan in 2003, and
Hong Kong in 2009. In 2014, First Derivatives purchased a 65 percent share of Kx Systems. Kx became a technology supplier to
NASA's Frontier Development Lab. In July 2018, FD Technologies bought all remaining shares in KX Systems that it did not already hold; Whitney and Lustgarten then went on to found Shakti. In 2025, FD Technologies sold KX to
TA Associates as part of their downsizing of spinning-off divisions such as the company and other subsidiary First Derivative which was sold to
EPAM Systems. ==References==