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IBM, Worldspan ink $350 million deal
Martin LaMonica Former Staff writer, CNET News
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer covering green tech and cutting-edge technologies. He joined CNET in 2002 to cover enterprise IT and Web development and was previously executive editor of IT publication InfoWorld.
IBM and Worldspan announced on Tuesday a five-year deal worth $350 million to expand the latter's line of online travel-industry services. Worldspan plans to connect its IBM mainframe-based, high-volume transaction system to IBM's WebSphere line of Java server software. Worldspan expects that moving the Transaction Processing Facility system to WebSphere will let it create new services for customers and lower costs.
"This infrastructure transformation moves Worldspan closer to being a true 'on demand' e-business with technology that is able to scale more easily and economically to meet the variable needs of the marketplace," Paul Blackney, CEO of Worldspan, said in a statement. Worldspan, which is owned by Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines and American Airlines parent company AMR, provides travel-related reservation services to businesses, such as travel agents and corporations. Worldspan is a long-time customer of IBM for travel-related systems integration services.