Amadeus Grows E-Group

<B>Amadeus Grows E-Group</B>

By Jay Campbell

Putting a face on its numerous e-commerce investments over the past two years, Amadeus last week announced the appointment of Diane Breece to vice president of an expanded e-commerce and commercial development group. Focused on online solutions for leisure and unmanaged travel, business development and commercial and joint venture relationships, Breece said the unit works closely with Amadeus' corporate travel group.

She would not comment, however, on word that Amadeus is the likely buyer of Oracle's E-Travel unit (BTN, May 7). A number of sources said Amadeus was the most interested suitor, and speculated that such a deal would make a lot of sense. One source familiar with E-Travel said a deal could be announced as early as this week.

"We're not in a position to announce anything now," said Breece. "We continue to look at how we can best play in the corporate world. We realize we're coming in behind or late." Asked generally about acquisitions, Breece said, "We're looking more critically at where we want to spend our money."

In addition to its SAP partnership, Amadeus offers Corporate Traveller, a managed travel product that was just upgraded to version 3.0 and runs only with the Amadeus GDS. The company will announce a new North American client for that product in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, Amadeus hired in its e-commerce area Michael Mabrouk, formerly Worldspan's director of e-commerce corporate sales, as director of e-commerce sales and marketing, and Stewart Alvarez as director of commercial development.