Stories about: Cendant

Several IT executives at the LinuxWorld Summit last week reinforced the idea that Linux now has the technical brawn and industry support to accommodate the most demanding business applications in environments such as finance, airline reservations and stock trading.

Continental Airlines encountered a bit of turbulence last year when it decided to shift the ticket-reissue application it had built for Unix-based servers to a full open-source software stack with a 64-bit database server.

When Cendant's Travel Distribution Services (TDS) division considered shifting its airline-fare system to Linux on Intel-based servers, the IT department couldn't simply flip the switch. The system handles 700 transactions per second in the course of processing millions of fares from more than 500 airlines around the world. So the IT team set aside a few months to do a careful analysis of the business case.

Cendant's Travel Distribution Services (TDS) division has moved its airline fare system to IBM's e-Server systems to deliver fares to customers faster.

Many IT users are questioning the motives of Microsoft since Monday's announcement that the company had signed a Unix technology licensing deal with The SCO Group.

Galileo International Inc., one of the four major worldwide reservation systems that handle travel industry bookings, is implementing a Unix-based fare-pricing system that will enable it to change and publish fares more cheaply and quickly to meet the demands of travel Web sites.

Turbolinux Inc. and Equinox Systems Inc. have agreed to combine software products and joinly participate in marketing activities. This agreement sees Linux migrate further into additional software markets.