Dean Witter Boosts OTC Desk With OS/2, NASDAQ Software

When Dean Witter Reynolds Inc.'s OTC trading desk moves to its new quarters on the 67th floor of 2 World Trade Center next month, it will be much changed. The stand-alone Quotron Systems Inc. terminals, the old Harris NASDAQ terminals and the IBM 3270 terminals will be gone.

In their place, each of Dean Witter's 40-odd OTC traders will find four side-by-side high-resolution 14" color monitors driven by an IBM PS/2 Model 80 workstation with 10 megabytes of RAM, a single keyboard and a mouse.

The monitors will be displaying Automatic Data Processing Inc.'s new OS/2 quotation service, NASDAQ's Level III service and a variety of internal IBM CICS applications for order- handling, inventory, position-keeping, and P&L and risk management.

Dean Witter's OTC trading desk makes a market in some 1,500 NASDAQ stocks, and engages in three types of trading: as a market-maker against Dean Witter retail customers; against the Street to adjust inventory and take speculative principal positions; and through NASDAQ's Small Order Execution System.

Traders rejected the notion of multiple page displays on a single screen, says Roy Savoca, vice president information services at Dean Witter Reynolds. A single monitor -- like IBM's outsized plasma screen -- would have been too tall and the characters on a multi-page display too small for comfortable viewing.

The IBM PS/2s will be running the latest version of IBM's OS/2 operating system -- probably Extended Edition release 1.3 -- and the graphical user interface will be Presentation Manager.

Aside from the federal government, Sears Roebuck & Co., Dean Witter Reynolds' corporate parent, is IBM's largest customer.

Sears' strategic direction in information systems is all Big Blue, and the OS/2 operating system was one of Sears' strategic choices that Dean Witter had no choice but to work with.

The result, at least on the OTC desk, is a colorful, flexible wrap-around trading workstation that cost perhaps $10,000 to $12,000 per position in capital expenditures (not counting the furniture).

Dean Witter's OTC desk is the site of several OS/2 firsts. It's the first installation of ADP's OS/2-Presentation Manager quote service -- developed by Multex Inc., acquired by ADP two years ago (Micro Ticker Report, April, 1989). It is also the first installation of NASD's presentation server software for its NASDAQ Digital Interface Service. And finally, it is the first installation of PI Systems Ltd.'s NetI application-sharing utility under OS/2 and Presentation Manager.

In addition, every PS/2 will be equipped with two Colorgraphics boards (from Atlanta-based Colorgraphics Communications Corp.), each of which can manage up to three high-resolution monitors. Together with some IBM device drivers that operate only under OS/2-PM, the Colorgraphics cards allow all four monitors to be managed as if they were a single huge contiguous screen.

If desired, windows can be stretched across all four screens. The system's mouse can also be moved smoothly across all the screens. And for users who lose track of their mouse cursor in those wide open spaces, IBM has provided Dean Witter with a pair of little bloodshot eyeballs that follow the cursor's movements about the screen.

Instead of their old NASDAQ terminals, Dean Witter's OTC traders will see a fully functional NASDAQ Level III terminal emulation courtesy of NASD's NASDAQ Digital Interface Service (DIS). The Level III emulation will be distributed and accessed via PI Systems' NetI network-based application- sharing software (TST, Aug. 15, 1988).

When NASDAQ first released its digital interface, it offered only a raw data feed; users had to cobble together their own page-generation software and user interface. Two firms -- Merrill Lynch & Co. and Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc. -- elected to develop their own presentation software for the NASD digital interface. Merrill Lynch successfully completed its UNIX version late last year.

Meanwhile, NASDAQ itself has decided to develop and release its own presentation software. The software, which generates screen images and manages trader I/O like a standard NASDAQ Level III workstation, runs under Santa Cruz Operation Inc.'s version of UNIX. The NASDAQ DIS digital server runs under XENIX.

At Dean Witter, the NASDAQ DIS digital server software (which handles wide area network communications and caches raw data) and the DIS presentation server software run on two 33 MHz IBM PS/2 Model 95 workstations linked by high-speed Ethernet TCP/IP LAN. Together, the two servers can accommodate as many as 16 active traders, says Savoca. Dean Witter plans to install three pairs of DIS servers.

The DIS presentation server is linked via Ethernet LAN to a conversion server -- an IBM PS/2 Model 90 -- which mediates traffic between the trading desk's IBM Token Ring LAN and the NASDAQ DIS Ethernet.

PI Systems' NetI software is installed in the DIS presentation server and in all the traders' PS/2s. Using virtual screen buffers in the DIS presentation server and NASDAQ keyboard emulation, NetI allows all 16 traders to carry on fully interactive Level III sessions through the DIS servers.

The ADP OS/2 quotation service, tentatively dubbed Multiview (although the screen says "ADP Quote"), delivers Dow Jones scrolling news and headlines, a ticker, time and sales, snap quotes and a market monitor function. Runners-up for the Dean Witter quote service contract included ILX Systems Inc., PC Quote Inc. and Quotron. Savoca says ADP won "hands down."

Nonetheless, Savoca says he is still somewhat concerned about the ADP server's use of DOS layered with Mondrian -- an obscure Microsoft operating system originally licensed to the ill-fated IMNET joint venture.

While Dean Witter's OTC desk trading system doesn't include any charting or decision-support graphics, Savoca says traders will eventually be able to extract real-time digital data directly from NASDAQ's DIS digital server. Traders would then import the data into applications running on their PS/2s. Up to three additional monitors can be added without additional Colorgraphics cards.

The procurement process for Dean Witter's 20,000 retail broker workstations is still unresolved, but ADP's ability to field a successful OS/2 product on the OTC desk may give its hopes for the retail side of the firm a boost.