Federated Scraps Shrink-Wrapped Sales, Focuses On Fund Administration Customers

Federated Investors of Pittsburgh has shelved the sales effort behind its shrink-wrapped software product, FedPortS, barely a year after launching it. While the reversal in strategy was never publicly announced, the decision behind it was reached last spring, soon after Arthur Cherry was hired as the new president of Federated Services Co., the asset manager's technology and operations subsidiary.

The unit being scaled back did business as Advanced Information Systems, and it had sold its