More than 1 600 state-owned Czechoslovakian companies have, using a coupon voucher system, been privatised with the help of Software AG`s Adabas C on a Digital VAX platform. The Software AG solution has also been successfully utilised to create a electronic securities exchange, connecting more than 231 online workstations at professional customer sites for investors to trade from their own offices or homes.
In 1991, two years after then-Czechoslovakia`s `Velvet Revolution` toppled more than 40 years of Communist rule, the new government began the process of privatising hundreds of state-owned enterprises. The first wave of privatisation included large industrial factories, such as Czech car maker, Skoda, to smaller service-oriented firms like hotels, restaurants and shops. The majority of these companies were privatised using the `coupon method`.
Just three months before the privatisation process began, PVT, a leading IT provider in the Czech Republic, won the order to design an information system to handle all the coupon voucher registrations.
According to Pavel Pisa, director of technology at PVT, the company had been working with unofficial `socialist copies` of Adabas C and Digital hardware for years. "Because the coupon privatisation program was very stressful and on a tight deadline, there was no time to start working with new technologies. So we decided to use official versions of the technology we already knew. Plus, the Software AG and Digital technology were very compatible," he says.
The 8 million citizens who participated in the project were allowed to register privatisation coupons. Each `coupon booklet` was worth 1 000 points, and could be used to purchase private shares in a company or handed over to an investment fund to invest and manage.
From there, PVT took over the process. Registrations and orders to buy shares were entered in one of 38 local databases, located around Czechoslovakia and the data then transferred over a network to a central Adabas database on a VAX 6000 in Prague. Orders could also be made from post offices in the country.
"With this hectic tempo of sending and transferring data, the process was driven centrally. Adabas was an effective means of processing this information in waves and sending it back quickly," Pisa explains. "It was very important when moving so much data that it was secure and stable. We had a back-up system, but the Adabas was very reliable and the performance was excellent."
According to PVT officials, Adabas offered "record performance", processing and partly storing 10 million records.
Privatisation in the Czech Republic ended officially in 1996. But PVT had already considered how it could use the Software AG/Digital system - and data - in other ways.
PVT came up with the idea to provide a computerised information service for the buying and selling of securities on the market - an electronic securities exchange. After all, many of the same people who had taken part in the privatisation project would also want to invest further in the Czech Republic`s newly founded capital market. And in 1993, legislation was passed that ordered all data from the first wave of privatisation to be registered with the new Czech Securities Exchange.
Again, PVT won the order in a public call for bids to design and implement such a system to manage the service for the Czech Securities Exchange. At the same time as the securities and stock markets were developing in the Czech Republic, PVT formed a new company, RM-System, to offer services for this market. An analysis by consultants Ernst & Young confirmed that Adabas/Natural running on Digital hardware would be the best system to support the new securities exchange.
Similar to the coupon privatisation project, the electronic securities exchange runs over PVT`s network and is processed with Adabas C.
Today, however, the original system has been updated and modernised to meet the demand for increased security and performance. The network is now based on Digital`s DEC-net technology, and Adabas has been migrated to two Alpha servers.
Through PVT`s daughter company, RM-System, private investors can trade, bid, buy, sell and transfer securities electronically. In addition, the system does a pre-trade check to ensure all transactions are valid.
"RM-System gives our customers an overview of the world securities market.
Because most operations are in real-time, it takes just a few minutes before orders are processed," Karel Menzinger, a member of the board at RM-System, says. "This system makes it possible to buy or sell securities several times a day."
RM-System operates 109 `share shops` set up around the Czech republic, where people can place their orders through representatives of RM-System.
In the future, PVT plans to Web-enable the electronic securities exchange -to make the service even more user friendly and accessible to private investors - using Software AG`s Adabas/Natural and Digital`s high performance Alpha servers.
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