Hartford Investment Mgmt. Upgrades To Maximis 1.3; Product's Turnaround Seen
PORTFOLIO SYSTEMS
CONNECTICUT-based Hartford Investment Management Company (Himco), the investment management subsidiary of insurer ITT Hartford, has upgraded to Premier Solutions' Maximis version 1.3. As Himco's core accounting system, Maximis supports some $50 billion in assets under management invested in bond and equity holdings. The firm was the first new client to install the much-traveled Maximis system after it was acquired by Premier from Texas Instruments over two years ago (IMT, October 14, 1994).
Despite having yet to turn a profit with Maximis since it acquired the product, Premier remains committed to continue support and development of the product. While Maximis will again show a loss for Premier this year, a spokesperson for the vendor says Maximis is now heading towards profitability.
Himco director of investment operations Kevin Werle, who is responsible for back-office settlement and accounting systems, says that the firm brought the latest release of the Hewlett-Packard H-P UX-based version of Maximis into full production in mid-October. Release 1.3 expands Maximis' coverage of different asset types, including interest rate and currency swaps, index futures and options, floating rate securities, and interest-only derivative instruments.
Release 1.3 is the first Maximis release in which an alpha test involving users was conducted. Officials from Himco, as well as representatives from the ten other firms that use Maximis, spent four weeks at Premier's Dallas facility processing over 1,000 test scenarios against new and existing Maximis functions. "[Release 1.3] delivered several things we needed, including foreign tax withholding capabilities, improved cash management functions and support for IO and PO securities," says Werle. Release 1.3 also incorporated 1996 National Association of Insurance Commissioners annual statutory Schedule D reporting requirements functionality.
Werle says Himco earmarks a significant portion of its operating budget strictly for technology, a large part of which involves its core accounting system. "We currently don't have any outstanding work requests," says Werle. "We're just taking enhancements as they come down the pipeline." Himco was one of the first sites to go live with Maximis after Premier acquired the system over two years ago.
After months of negotiations, Premier Solutions inked a deal with Texas Instruments for Maximis in early October 1994. The deal gave Premier an immediate presence in the insurance company marketplace. Premier inherited a client base of eight user firms including the likes of Allstate Insurance (IMT, June 10, 1994) and Aetna Life Insurance (IMT, Feb. 4, 1994). "When we purchased [Maximis] it was losing millions of dollars," says the spokesperson. "It's not profitable for us [yet]. However, since we've taken it over in the last two years we've increased the revenue five times."
The spokesperson says Premier does not expect Maximis will turn a profit for 1996. "But, we're still better off than last year," says the spokesperson. "We're happy where it is going, it's just not there yet." Premier has since increased Maximis' roster to 11 clients.
"We we're one of the first sites to go live with Maximis after its transition over to Premier," says Werle. Himco finalized its decision to install Maximis while the software was still owned by Texas Instruments in mid-1994. Installation began in early 1995 and Himco went live with full production in November of 1995.
LOOKING BACK
Werle says Maximis is perfectly suited for Himco's investment accounting needs in large part because of the role ITT Hartford played in the early development of Maximis predecessor.
In the late 1980s, ITT Hartford was the development partner with software vendor Control Data in the conception of Investment Management Information System (IMIS). Control Data later sold IMIS to Texas Instruments in 1990 which in turn began the development of a next generation product to IMIS, hence Maximis (Max-IMIS).
"ITT Hartford, which portfolio is the same only larger, worked with the folks at Control Data to develop IMIS and Maximis shows a lot of those roots," says Werle. "We participated in the design and development process so much that we're covered pretty much in terms of functionality in an accounting system."
"We've been through a couple of transitions," says Werle. "When Control Data had it we worked closely with them. When Texas Instruments had it we worked closely with them, now we've had a year and a half or so working with Premier as they try and chart a course."
POSITIVE FEEDBACK
Although the functionality of Maximis appealed to officials at Himco, Werle says the vendor had some reservations about Premier when the vendor took control of Maximis. "We work with some of the banks that use some of their other products and did a lot of reference checking when they entered the picture," says Werle. "The feedback that we got from our custodian banks that had worked with Premier was positive." Werle declines to name the custodian banks Himco approached during evaluations.
The spokesperson for Premier says officials at the vendor have been meeting with executives from Maximis user firms over the last two months. "These are high-level meetings," says the spokesperson. "We call our clients business clients and we do this across all of our product lines."
"We've had these meetings every year, whether they are with Premier, Control Data or Texas Instruments," says Werle. "It's a matter of charting a course of short and long term objectives for the product."
"I don't think anything has been produced," says Werle. "It's more of making a comprehensive list of what everybody is looking for and what everybody needs. We pretty much go through this rite of passage every year."
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