With only a week to go before Morningstar, we’re gearing up to officially debut Revolution to the North American market. Our cloud-based platform for portfolio analytics and reporting has been in beta testing with some of the best in the business since October, so when the curtain goes up in Chicago on June 8, we expect Revolution’s debut to have a big impact.

Some would say we’re staging an industry coup by offering a platform that’s so simple and, frankly, inexpensive. Financial technologies are supposed to be expensive and hard to use, right?

Regan Investments, RBC Dexia and Brown Brothers Harriman are among the industry leaders who apparently disagree. As early beta testers, they saw Revolution’s potential early in its development and have told us that the platform really is changing the game because it gives portfolio managers anywhere, anytime access to visual portfolio performance analytics and reporting, without compromising the strength or integrity of the data that underlies portfolio analysis.

Unlike other revolutionary technology thought leaders, we haven’t kept Revolution a complete secret before its official launch. But we haven’t shared everything yet. So for you, our loyal readers and new recruits to the revolution, we offer a few insider tips on what Revolution will change in asset management:

• Licenses on a per-portfolio, not per-user, basis – ensures portfolio managers can securely share data across the business, from front-office to back-office.  One portfolio license enables up to 100 individuals access to portfolio data

• Simple data management – users can upload holdings through the web or FTP, edit portfolios directly online, import the firm’s own data such as weights and returns and create custom securities and benchmark

• Instant, online reporting to anyone – always-on capabilities let managers get closer to clients through fast, easy-to-understand reports in PDF or Excel format

• Superb visual analysis – provides detail and drill down to stock levels when required

• Access to essential data and research – thousands of benchmarks and over 500,000 securities can be found through the Revolution interface

If you’re in Chicago next week, stop by booth #161 for more detail – we’ll be in Revolution Red uniform and ready to talk about what the technology means for the industry. And be sure to follow us on Twitter at#RevolutionMorningstar to get daily updates on the battle for better portfolio management technologies.