Wall Street - Capital Raisers or Edge Seekers?

There has been a technological race going on with Wall Street for years.

Has it been a race to help the private sector raise capital for promising business propositions? Is it a race to develop systems that more efficiently deliver government securities to investors? Hardly. Many of the supposed functions of this critical segment of the economy (Wall Street brokerage houses) are a side show. Instead proprietary trading departments are busy pouring many millions of dollars into the design of incredibly sophisticated computer systems that simply help these firms extract valuable split second information. In the end these functions can improve their firm's ability to carve dollars out of the financial system through high speed trading activities.

Is this a capital raising function or a fancy description of high tech frontrunning?
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Wall Street - Capital Raisers or Edge Seekers?