T. Rowe Readies GPS, Eyes More NT, Plans I-Way Apps

On the eve of cutting over to a new portfolio management and accounting system supplied by DST Systems Inc.-subsidiary DST Belvedere, T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. is preparing to replace not only its incumbent mainframe-based system (IMT, Sept. 30, 1994), but Thomson Investment Software's Portia, as well. The firm is rolling out DST Belvedere's Global Portfolio System (GPS), a Unix-based platform that includes multicurrency features and performance attribution functionality. The Baltimore, Md.-based T. Rowe Price maintains $71 billion in assets under management; some $47 billion of that total resides in mutual fund accounts.

More details of T. Rowe's portfolio accounting system plans are emerging at a time when the firm has a undertaken a massive I.T. staff recruitment effort. T. Rowe Price is now looking to hire some 300 new employees--including more than a hundred technology personnel who will be assigned to participate in a number of disparate I.T. initiatives in 1996. These projects include development of Internet capabilities and the installation of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT on the desktop. Most of the other 200 new hires are slated to fill customer service positions.

With the anticipated GPS rollout, T. Rowe Price is primarily aiming to provide greater access to portfolio data throughout the firm. According to T. Rowe Price vice president Michael Goff, who is also the firm's chief technology officer, this goal stands in contrast to the firm's status quo, where a "very limited community" uses the two incumbent systems. In addition to Portia, the firm relies on a mainframe-based system from Towson, Md.-based DP Associates Inc., says Goff.

Goff says that the DST Belvedere system will include "new graphical front-ends written for Windows and Windows NT.... Anybody that needs to or has authority can look at that data. It's extensible for all sorts of portfolios."

Goff says the firm is still in the process of mapping out the many applications it aims to support with GPS. For example, he says, customer representatives will be able to access private portfolios "put together for pensions or defined contribution plans" using the GPS system. "There's a lot of information that a lot of people could and should have access to for a variety of reasons," he says.

The transition from Portia to GPS will occur in "probably the second [or] third quarter," says Goff. The firm will begin running GPS in parallel with Portia and the DP Associates mainframe early in the first quarter. "We're going to take the more complicated portfolios that we now have on Portia and convert them," he says. The other less complex portfolios will be migrated "over the balance of the year."

One highlight of the GPS system, according to Goff, is its versatility. "We know [GPS is] very flexible and extensible beyond what portfolio accounting systems have traditionally been used for. It's got a lot of analytics built right into it," he says.

T. Rowe price intends to integrate GPS with two trading systems: an equity trading system supplied by Merrin Financial Inc. and an as-yet-undetermined fixed-income trading system. T. Rowe Price's ongoing search for a fixed-income trading system has been narrowed down to three products, Goff says. He declines to name them.

Last year, IMT reported that T. Rowe Price had selected DST's GPS following competitive evaluations with Portia, Texas Instruments Inc.'s Maximis and Magnus Software Corp.'s Securities Management System. T. Rowe Price chose GPS for its rules-based design and its use of relational database technology, according to a T. Rowe Price official. The GPS system is compatible with database technology from Ingres Corp., Sybase Inc. and Oracle Corp., according to a DST Belvedere spokesperson.

According to Goff, the firm relies on a three tier client/server application architecture. For database management technology, T. Rowe Price has products from three vendors: Sybase, Oracle and IBM--whose DB2 is also in use.

On the desktop, the migration to Windows NT will replace both Windows 3.1 and IBM's OS/2 operating systems. As for the back room, Goff says: "We will make server decisions on a case-by-case basis. Right now we're using a lot of Sun [Microsystems Inc.] Solaris and [IBM] AIX [Unix variant] on the servers. The Belvedere [GPS] portfolio system, for example, is on a Sun Sparcstation [running the] Sun Solaris operating system."

While the shift to Windows NT desktops began nearly six months ago, "the bulk of them are being converted this fall and winter," he says. Goff says that some 1,200 desktops--which comprise nearly three-quarters of the firm's desks--are running Windows NT "right now."

As for the firm's plan to beef up its technology staff, Goff says T. Rowe wants the manpower to support various development "initiatives we have for next year and beyond." This includes "investing" in a marketing system, a customer service system, and a retirement plan record-keeping and servicing system.

The firm seeks to hire systems and data architects, as well as "usability" or "look and feel" experts. Other skills in demand at T. Rowe Price are documentation and training experience. Systems architects are wanted "so that we can get object-oriented," says Goff. Back-office experience is also desired, he adds. Other technology professionals needed at the firm are support and service desk staff. "The bulk of all the new hires are to construct new customer service front-ends to improve our responsiveness," says Goff.

Most of the new technology hires will work out of the firm's Maryland locations. "All the development and heavy support is done out of Baltimore and Owings Mills, Maryland," says Goff. The customer service people, primarily telephone representatives, will be hired for the firm's Baltimore and Tampa, Fla., locations. Goff notes that while technology personnel are based in Maryland, there are some PC local area network support people stationed in T. Rowe Price's Tampa and Los Angeles offices.

Meanwhile, Internet technology experts are high on the firm's wish list as well. T. Rowe Price ultimately wants to offer online transaction services sometime in the future. "The primary focus is developing technologies which can be used by our shareholders, participants or clients to do self-servicing on the Internet," says Goff.

Goff says that T. Rowe's ambition to bring trading online sets it apart from many of its competitors on the buy side, who have thus far primarily been interested only in posting information--such as prospectuses and prices--on the Internet. T. Rowe has its own discount brokerage unit. "We want to take it to the next level, which is to exploit the Internet and give people"--whether pension plan participants, mutual fund shareholders or discount brokerage clients--"a little more access," he says.

"For example," Goff says, "a discount brokerage client uses their Web browser to come in and get their discount brokerage account and do trades on the Internet." Such a system would also allow the customer to look at mutual fund share balances. In addition, if this customer works for a company that has a retirement plan with T. Rowe Price, the customer would be able to look at that account information and take out a loan or conduct a beneficiary change or any other transaction, says Goff.

The money management firm currently has a pilot program for 100 or so T. Rowe Price customers which provides Internet access to some of this functionality.

Goff says that the firm is moving cautiously with the Internet since security issues are still a cause for concern. "But we're at least going to have the technology ready once we solve the security problems, which I think will be in the first quarter. We've got some connectivity strategies which will help with the security," he says.

T. Rowe Price plans to use Netscape Communications Corp.'s Netscape World Wide Web browser and Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java programming language. "Eventually, we'll be writing Netscape HTML applications and Hot Java applets to do" Internet development work, he says. All of the HTML software will run under any Web browser, but it is being "optimized" for Netscape, he adds.