Datalex And Sight & Sound Software Merge To Offer Complete Online Booking Solutions To Travel Industry

Datalex And Sight & Sound Software Merge To Offer Complete Online Booking Solutions To Travel Industry

A New Power Emerges in the Online Air Travel Booking Market

DUBLIN, Ireland & PORTLAND, Ore. – April 3, 2000 — The power of online travel booking systems is poised to grow dramatically with the merger announced today of Sight & Sound Software and Datalex. Sight & Sound Softwares product, BookSmart, is a top-performing online travel booking engine and Datalex is a leading global provider of full-service solutions to the airline and travel industry. The combined company will be better positioned to serve new and existing customers, bring innovative solutions to market faster, and deliver the underlying technologies needed to allow the online travel industry to continue to thrive and reach its full potential.
The joint forces of these two leading technology providers will dominate the online air travel booking market, which is the largest, and fastest growing online commerce category. The merger reflects demand for increasing sophistication in booking engine technology. Online travel enterprises compete through their offerings of content, user functions, and high levels of personalized customer service.
One combined company will now provide the full range of integrated solutions for the online travel enterprise," said Neil Wilson, CEO of Datalex. Customers were telling us, ‘What wed really like is to use Sight & Sound for this and Datalex for that. Now all the desired components are available from a single source."
Sight & Sound and Datalex have the full range of products to satisfy the needs of the online travel enterprise," said Jeff Kennedy, CEO of Sight & Sound Software, and the open architecture needed to work with other best-of-class solutions to build a complete infrastructure for the enterprise."
Sight & Sounds leading-edge distributed computing technology and open architecture allows BookSmart to be deployed, configured and scaled to serve more customers. Customized applications can be written on top of BookSmart to add important features, such as BroadVisions personalization systems. Furthermore, third-party distribution, supported by marketing and technical services, assures continued rapid revenue growth for the merged company.
Datalex has 15 years of unmatched domain-knowledge expertise across many areas of travel technology that includes Java-based booking systems, private fares engines, tour and cruise products and connectivity solutions that work with the WORLDSPAN, Galileo, Amadeus, and Sabre reservation systems.
This merger will significantly change the competitive landscape of the online travel industry," said Krista Pappas, director of travel at Gomez Advisors, the leading e-commerce authority providing decision support to consumers that want to transact online and information to business that want to attract and retain online consumers. The new organization will address a broad range of requirements - including booking engines, private-fares engines, host access servers, and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions – to satisfy the needs of the entire online enterprise."
Company & product plans
The combined companies will be registered as Datalex Ltd. and the headquarters for the company will remain in Dublin, Ireland. The Dublin office will serve customers in Europe and the Middle East and function as the center of excellence for research and development of leisure travel products. Portland, Oregon will become a center of excellence for booking engine research and architectural development. Jeff Kennedy, CEO of Sight and Sound Software will become CEO of Datalex USA, while Neil Wilson will remain CEO of Datalex Global Group Operations.
The product road map entails combining the best technology and architectural attributes of both booking engines, BookSmart and BookIt!, and surrounding them with an array of products that support booking tours and private fares, host connectivity, and CRM. We are committed to maintaining compatibility and support for our current customers, while leveraging the best of the technology from BookSmart and BookIt!," said Wilson. Well be forming a team of strategic planners and architects to plan our next generation of products. In the meantime, the complementary products will coexist."
The convergence to one, feature-rich, open system provides a scalable, extensible architecture for the entire online travel enterprise that can be combined with other best-of-class components. Datalexs global presence will deliver this technology worldwide through locations in Europe, North America, Australia, and Africa and through a network of global integration and hosting partnerships," Wilson added.
About Datalex
Datalex is the leading global provider of full-service, end-to-end Information Technology solutions to the airline and travel industry. Founded in 1985, the company is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, and maintains offices in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Manchester, England; and Melbourne, Australia. Datalex employs more than 330 professionals. The company's core competence is in devising solutions for e-Commerce, Enterprise Application Integration and Customer Relationship Management. Each day Datalex products and solutions are used throughout the world by major airlines, travel agencies, and thousands of travel consumers. Datalex was recently announced as a technology partner for the new airline travel site founded by United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines and Continental Airlines. Major travel customers include Aer Lingus, Amadeus, Amtrak, British Airways, California State Automobile Association, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, KLM, Korean Air, Singapore Airlines, Tickets.com, Thai Airways, and WORLDSPAN. For more information please visit the companys Web site at http://www.datalex.com.
About Sight & Sound Software
Founded in 1994, Sight & Sound Software provides products and services for the online travel market. The companys flagship product, BookSmart, occupies a unique position in the online travel industry. For more information, please visit the companys Web site at http://www.book-smart.com.
For more information, contact:

Karen Werstein      
Wave Rock Communications
503.944.6217
kwerstein@wave-rock.com

Barry Ahern
Slattery PR, Dublin
+353 1 661 4055 or
+353 086 850 8673    

David Smith
Datalex USA
770.582.4000
news@datalex.com

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