Worldspan and IBM today announced they signed a $350 million, five-year agreement to extend their cooperation on IBM's Transaction Processing Facility platform, which makes up the core technology for Worldspan and other global distribution systems. The deal also provides Worldspan with additional IBM software and services mainly relating to the Internet, such as IBM's WebSphere Internet and Application software. Worldspan expects the deal to lower its costs.
The deal is a boon for IBM's TPF technology, deemed in some 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."
"Worldspan has long been committed to using and adapting the TPF operating system, and is a leader in opening up the TPF platform for greater Internet utility," said Paul Blackney, Worldspan president and CEO, in a press release. "Our renewed relationship with IBM will enable Worldspan to leverage our existing system with new technology to increase capabilities and continue to provide flexible, Internet-based applications for our customers."
"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 is now 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 clients like Worldspan connect with more flexible programming languages.
Meanwhile, a Sabre spokesperson added no details about progress on its new technology platform, in development with Hewlett-Packard, beyond saying Sabre is on track with an October announcement indicating it completed "the initial migration of its massive air pricing application to the HP NonStop server platform." At the time, Sabre also said that the overall migration is a four-year program and that new shopping services were on the six-month horizon.