First Trust Corp., Denver, has moved to solve its year-2000 software problem by licensing trust software from SunGard Data Systems Inc.
Melissa Rosenbaum, manager at First Trust, said the company's information management needs were growing faster than its proprietary system could handle.
That factor, plus the need to address year-2000 complications, led the largest independent trustee for self-directed retirement accounts to seek an outside solution.
"We decided that we are not a software development shop," Ms. Rosenbaum said.
First Trust, a unit of Fiserv Inc., maintains 220,000 accounts, valued at more than $14 billion. They will run on SunGard's Windows-based trust system that links to an Oracle relational data base management system on an International Business Machines RS/6000 computer platform.
Global Plus was the flagship product of Premier Solutions. SunGard Asset Management Inc. acquired the company in April, when Premier was in the final stages of a three-year upgrade of the software, said James E. Ashton 3d, senior vice president at the Malvern, Pa.-based technology vendor.
First Trust will be the third institution to use SunGard's new client/server version. Fidelity Investments was the first installation. Officials would not disclose the second buyer or the terms of the First Trust purchase.
First Trust plans to convert its individual and business retirement plans to the new system by the third quarter of 1998.
