Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Sabre Travel Studios Join Forces to Bring Travelers Vital Information With TripCase App
Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport and Sabre Travel Studios have joined forces to place vital travel information in the hands of passengers via their mobile phone with TripCase, a smart phone application available now on the iPhone and BlackBerry platforms.
The smart phone software, developed by Sabre Travel Studios, allows passengers to track airline, hotel and car rental information while on the road, and receive updates automatically. With the partnership, DFW passengers will also get updates on gate and bag claim changes, as well as information on retail and restaurant offers and services offered within their terminal.
"DFW has partnered with more than 200 of its retail and dining location to provide passengers with price-conscious opportunities via TripCase," said Joe Lopano, executive vice president of Marketing and Terminal Management for DFW. "Passengers are going to love the added value DFW brings with real-time airport updates, information about shops and restaurants as well as discount offers."
"TripCase simplifies the travel experience by putting all of your itinerary information in one place on your phone," said John Samuel, senior vice president of Sabre Travel Studios. "Moreover, this DFW International Airport partnership gives passengers access to real-time airport updates, information about shops and restaurants, as well as discount offers from participating concessionaires."
Nearly 40 percent of all travelers at DFW use either an iPhone or Blackberry, with 54 percent of business travelers using the same smart phones. With this initial foray into smart phone technology underway, DFW will explore new ways for mobile technology to deliver passengers the kind of information they want.
Wipro Announces Oracle Powered Software-as-a-Service Platform
Wipro Technologies will offer 'w-SaaS', a platform for rapid Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) enablement of business applications using Oracle Grid Computing and Oracle application grid middleware for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs).
The platform will help ISVs enable their 'existing' business applications to operate in SaaS model in a non-intrusive manner with minimal re-implementation, and enable the traditional single tenant application to operate in an efficient multi-tenant mode. This is expected to result in savings of up to 50 percent of effort for SaaS enablement of existing applications, resulting in up to 10 percent to 20 percent savings in the total cost of ownership.
"With Wipro's global service delivery capability, Oracle's platform and strategic insights on world-class performance, this solution can be leveraged across multiple global customers," said Srini Pallia, senior vice president and global head, Business Technology Services, Wipro Technologies Ltd. "Our relationship with Oracle enables us to provide ISV's and joint customers, a powerful platform that allows them to improve their revenues in a cost effective manner."
Oracle has worked with Wipro to offer its comprehensive technology stack to its ISV partners through this complete platform for accelerated SaaS enablement. Wipro will benefit from the increased SaaS market reach in collaboration with Oracle.
Wipro expects opportunities for this offering in North America, with growth potentials in the emerging markets of Latin America, Asia Pacific and Western Europe. Energy & utilities, retail, transportation, healthcare and manufacturing sectors will be focus verticals.
Software AG Marks 27-Year Strategic Partnership with The Pennsylvania State University
Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) has marked the 27th year of its Software AG technology investment and expansion, including Adabas and Natural, for mission-critical administrative, financial and student applications. Penn State has continued to leverage Software AG solutions to meet current needs of students, faculty and staff and build a platform for future growth and expansion.
Software AG and Penn State share a strategic vision that has enabled the University to maximize its existing investment in technology, using Software AG technology to modernize core systems and reuse business logic in a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).
“We have a strategic partnership with Software AG, rather than a commodity relationship,” said Scott Smith, deputy director, Administrative Information Services, at Penn State.
Penn State’s partnership with Software AG began in 1982 when the University selected Adabas to replace and upgrade an aging data management system. Shortly thereafter, Penn State used Adabas and the Natural programming language, two components of Software AG’s Business Infrastructure Suite, to create an online student information system that was one of the first of its kind. Penn State built on this technological foundation to create a business records system to increase information availability, improve service, reduce processing time and streamline operations.
Over the years and throughout its partnership with Software AG, Penn State has continued to pursue a strategy of modernization of these and other applications, rather than “rip-and-replace.” Modernization has enabled Penn State to leverage its customized, proven, and stable administrative, financial, and student systems in modern architectural deployments, including SOA. Reuse has also delivered quantifiable benefits.
“We have seen other institutions spend millions of dollars trying to implement new enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and still be unhappy with the result,” Smith said. “In contrast, by developing our own applications using Adabas and Natural, we believe that we have saved millions of dollars over the years.”
Software AG’s consulting resources have also helped forge a strong partnership with Penn State. Recently, the University had Software AG perform a Customer First Assessment (CFA), a strategic consulting engagement in which Software AG recommends a solution to a specific business challenge. Penn State sought to Web-enable 75 processes that had been built using Natural, and the CFA advised Penn State to create a Web services hub and implement a business process management system. Penn State implemented Software AG’s BPM technology, a process-driven and information-centered workflow management solution, as both a foundation to the Web-enablement project and a platform for continued process improvement.
“The CFA saved us a tremendous amount of time and allowed us to create a better solution than if we had taken the time to do the analysis ourselves,” Smith said. “We have access to some very dedicated people at Software AG who have been very positive and responsive. Rather than only engaging us when it’s time to renew contracts, they are proactive in addressing our business challenges.”
Perot Systems Launches Suite of Cloud Integration and Secure Pay-Per-Use IT Services
Perot Systems Corp. has launched the Perot Systems Cloud Integration Services and Perot Systems Virtual Services; a family of secure, enterprise-class pay-per-use IT infrastructure and desktop services to help clients operate their business more effectively and cost efficiently. The new services are expected to enable the company's clients to maximize cost efficiencies by selecting from a variety of proven pre-configured services, or they may choose a custom-designed solution to meet their specific needs.
"This is the beginning of an important transformation for the IT services industry in terms of secure, integrated product offerings and an advancement over the much publicized 'cloud' concepts of the past few years," said Jim Stikeleather, CTO for Perot Systems. "Additionally, the new offerings are the result of our collaboration with leading providers in this space, such as Dell and VMware, to further enhance delivery of the most benefits at the lowest total cost of ownership and highest potential flexibility for our clients."
Perot Systems Cloud Integration Services provide enterprises with a trusted advisor and integration specialist to help clients navigate the universe of cloud offerings in the market and appropriately apply the various solutions through alliances. By providing integration expertise through the complete lifecycle of cloud services, including consulting, implementation, transformation and operations, Perot Systems helps companies achieve the specific level of services that best meet their needs.
Perot Systems' new services are designed to enable its clients to rapidly acquire computing resources while avoiding the capital costs, time and resources associated with purchasing and provisioning their own hardware and software. The launch of cloud integration services and pay-per-use IT solutions is the first step in a broad spectrum of cloud-based services that Perot Systems is currently developing and actively piloting with several clients.
Continuity Software Expands Channel Partner Program into Europe
Continuity Software, a provider of disaster recovery (DR) and high availability (HA) management solutions, has expanded its Channel Partner Program into Europe. The newly expanded program, now offered in the US, Israel and Europe, is intended to enable value-added resellers (VARs) and system integrators (SIs) to offer a comprehensive end-to-end solution for ensuring disaster recovery, high availability and business continuity. In addition to the ability to add RecoverGuard to their offerings portfolio, participants in the program are provided with access to an extensive partner-only extranet that includes such materials as: a marketing, sales and professional services solution kit, documentation, demos, and other collateral as well as the ability to sign-up for exclusive technical training sessions and marketing programs.
Continuity Software's RecoverGuard automatic DR and HA testing and monitoring software helps IT executives to ensure business continuity by automatically scanning their IT infrastructure and catching undetected errors before they impact operations. RecoverGuard offers a complete, end-to-end solution for ensuring business continuity that provides the ability to validate and assure both recovery point and recovery time objectives (RPO and RTO).
QlikView Partners Deliver On-Demand, Interactive Analytics in the Cloud
QlikTech, a Business Intelligence (BI) software company, has announced that Axis Group, Centerstance and Sports Data Hub are among the partners leveraging QlikView’s recently released Cloud offering to deliver dynamic data with interactive dashboards and visual analysis. A cost-effective solution that can deployed to users in 15 minutes, QlikView in the Cloud offers customers elastic scalability and platform neutrality with zero infrastructure cost. Partners report that in today’s economy, companies are looking for access to powerful and intuitive BI solutions without the burden and expense of managing the underlying infrastructure.
“Deployments of the dashboard are completed in weeks and clients are thrilled with the newfound freedom to see and navigate their information,” said Mike Mahaney, Project & Portfolio Solutions Director, AXIS Group. “The same capabilities would take several man-years to develop in traditional BI tools and the user experience would still not be matched.”
Partners are delivering value for both enterprise and consumer users with affordable access to software that analyzes real-time data for answers to questions ranging from “How can I analyze my Salesforce.com data” to “How can we move and replenish inventory faster?” and “Who is the best draft pick for my fantasy football team?”. QlikView is now the only BI solution that can be deployed on premise, in the cloud, or on a laptop or mobile device.
“With QlikView in the cloud, partners are able to offer customers the ability to quickly test and scale deployments,” said Anthony Deighton, Senior Vice President of Products at QlikTech. “From QlikView-powered web solutions to faster enterprise BI implementations, our partners are delivering meaningful analysis and immediate answers at a time when such visibility has never been more important.”
MWH Soft and Wallingford Software Combine Companies
MWH Soft, a global provider of environmental and water resources applications software, and Wallingford Software, a developer of water resource management software, are joining the two companies. MWH Soft, based in Broomfield, Colo. and Wallingford Software, based in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, UK are both providers of hydraulic modeling software to water and wastewater utilities around the world. The combined firm will be able to provide a full suite of software products geared toward hydraulics and hydrology.
“The joining of these companies allows us to add another dimension to our product offering,” says Dr. Paul Boulos, president of MWH Soft. “By combining two companies with a reputation for excellence in the modeling industry, we will be able to address the full needs of our clients globally. We are excited to work together with Wallingford Software.”
“This is a tremendous opportunity to expand our service offerings for our clients, as well as expand into new geographies,” says Andy Brown, Wallingford Software European Operations Director. “We are looking forward to this new frontier.”
The combined company will continue to provide customer support and development from its current operations in United Kingdom, US, Australia and Malaysia. |
SC World Congress 2009