Worldspan and IBM this month announced they signed a $350 million, five-year agreement to extend cooperation on IBM's Transaction Processing Facility platform, which makes up the core technology for Worldspan and other global distribution systems. The deal provides Worldspan with additional IBM software and services mainly relating to the Internet, such as IBM's WebSphere Internet and Application software. By focusing on one major technology provider, Worldspan expects the deal to lower its costs.
Worldspan senior vice president of worldwide product solutions Sue Powers said the additional software Worldspan will buy from IBM will improve such functions as the Trip Manager booking system's traveler profiles, which currently are duplicative with GDS-based profiles. It's expected that Worldspan and IBM will help better communicate traveler preferences to suppliers. Another benefit involves improved content for hotels and other products, matching location and rates with pictures.
The deal is a boon for IBM's TPF technology, deemed by some in technology circles as inflexible and closed. Both Amadeus and Sabre have worked to reduce their dependence on TPF
(BTN, Aug. 12, 2002), while the Worldspan announcement follows by 13 months a $1.4 billion deal signed between Galileo International parent Cendant Corp. and IBM. Contrasting the Cendant and Worldspan deals because the former was about strategic IT outsourcing, vice president of the travel and transportation division of IBM Global Services Bill Diffenderffer said both were proof that a trend of reinventing the TPF "never took root. It has been around a long time and, like any king, there are contenders to its throne. Others are challenging its position of primacy, but it's still a very marketable, highly functional system whose capabilities can't be matched."
"There will be ongoing success stories for TPF inside the travel industry," Diffenderffer said, while not naming players in current negotiations with IBM. "Core reservations processing cannot be done better." Formerly head of the System One GDS, which now is part of Amadeus, Diffenderffer said IBM acknowledges that some functions can and should be moved off the legacy technology, as all GDSs are considering doing for pricing. He said the company's primary TPF-related investments have been designed to help such clients as Worldspan connect with more flexible programming languages.
Meanwhile, a Sabre spokesperson had no details to add about progress on its new technology platform in development with Hewlett-Packard beyond an October announcement in which Sabre said it completed "the initial migration of its massive air pricing application to the Hewlett-Packard NonStop server platform." Sabre, at the time, also said that the overall migration is a four-year program and that new shopping services were on the six-month horizon.