William O'Brien, chief executive of Direct Edge, makes no apologies for the practice, saying flash has gotten investors better prices on larger orders roughly 10% to 15% of the time.

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On EC2, available CPU, storage, and available memory can be orders of magnitudes larger than on mobile devices.

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The defendants were convicted in 2009 of one count of conspiracy for selling day traders access to the information that came from the internal squawk boxes, allowing the traders to beat larger firms to orders on securities.

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But Bassoul, 47, knows he can bank on upcoming orders from Fresh City as well as from much larger outfits like Yum Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell) and Domino's Pizza.

FORBES: Sell the Sizzle