<B>TechTalk</B>
<B>Figures Lie, Liars Figure</B>
One of the more interesting developments in the I:FAO-XOL development (see story, this page) is how differently I:FAO positioned the announcement for its German audience, through its investor relations department, than for its U.S. audience. For example, the German statement claimed that XOL was "until now, the second largest player in the USA offering online business travel booking software." Not only is it dubious to claim XOL was second largest with 150 corporate clients and 50 agency distributors--E-Travel, Worldspan, TRX Inc. and even American Express all should have something to say about that--but does the "until now" imply that under I:FAO, XOL now is number one?
Get that, GetThere?
Asked about these claims, I:FAO head of business development and strategy Bill McFarlane said, "There are lies and there are damn lies, so we don't want to get into a numbers game. No one has sized the market."
XOL vice president of marketing and business development Chris Bradshaw said she could not speak for I:FAO news releases. Asked what XOL's market position really was before the acquisition, she said she hadn't "looked at those stats recently" and that "now, XOL doesn't claim anything" in terms of market share.
In the German release, I:FAO said it would begin supporting XOL customers, including Dupont, Merck and Wal-Mart. But those three companies really are clients of Rosenbluth International, which happens to use XOL's PowerTrip as the booking engine in its @Rosenbluth system, and two of them right now are preparing to select a new system. While the U.S. news release said, "By agreement between the parties, the terms of the agreement are not disclosed," the German one said, "The financial terms of the agreement are, by request of Xtra On-Line Corp., not to be disclosed."
It's a case of two tales in two cities, but I:FAO is not the first entity in this industry to distribute misinformation. Actually, it's rampant. Take a recent Association of Corporate Travel Executives conference speaker, for example. "Teaching" an educational seminar on online travel procurement, he told more than a dozen buyers that air travel accounts for 62 percent of travel expenditures at most businesses and that the top 100 travel-spending corporations purchase an average of $93 billion in air travel.
When I asked the speaker where he got such ridiculous numbers, he falsely cited Business Travel News. The real numbers are closer to 45 percent and $100 million.
Meanwhile, almost every vendor in the industry has stretched the truth--and then has had the nerve to complain about overly lengthy RFPs. Of course, many buyers have been guilty, too, especially around RFP time. It's no wonder that companies on both sides of the bargaining table are so sensitive about data and data privacy. McFarlane was right about damn lies. You also might say figures lie and liars figure--it's just unfortunate that there are so many of both in business, particularly the cutthroat and often over-hyped travel technology business.
<B><A NAME="2">Datalex Warns On Slowing Demand</B>
Dublin-based travel booking vendor Datalex expects lower revenues year over year for the three months ending June 30, thanks to "a temporary decline in demand," said Neil Wilson, Datalex Group CEO. "Until revenue visibility improves, based on the actual signing of contracts rather than estimates of pipeline conversion, we must continue to be cautious about the outturn for the remainder of the year. We remain committed to achieving profitability in early 2002 and will continue to manage our business accordingly.