The Amadeus/ITA Software low-fare search application is designed to enable Amadeus's customers -- over 60,000 travel agencies and airline sales offices around the globe using over 200,000 terminals connected to the system and numerous airline and travel agency websites powered by Amadeus -- to find the least-expensive airline route among all possible routings between two cities almost instantly over the World Wide Web, 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

The application's workload requires levels of scalability, performance and uninterrupted system availability that are among the most stringent in any industry.

"The exceptional system performance delivered in the Unisys demonstration of the Amadeus solution clearly proves that Windows 2000 can handle the most demanding business applications right now," said Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft. "It also shows that Unisys ES7000 provides an exceptionally powerful platform to capitalize on the enterprise computing capabilities of Windows 2000 for large-scale e-business solutions."

Amadeus/ITA Software's low-fare search application has unusually sophisticated query capabilities. In addition to searching direct routes between two cities, it searches all possible indirect routes as well, deriving the lowest fare from tens of thousands of possible combinations of routes, or "flight segments."

The capability to perform these complex operations in response to client queries within an average of six seconds differentiates the Amadeus solution from similar applications used by other computerized reservations systems.

During the demonstration here today, the Unisys ES7000 running the application with Windows 2000 Datacenter Server demonstrated near-linear scalability, with performance increasing at a constant rate as each incremental group of four processors was added to address the growing application workload. The ES7000 scaled from eight processors to 12 to 16, increasing the workload incrementally from 4.3 billion to 6.4 billion to 8.5 billion flight segment analyses per day.

Unisys expects that the application executed on an ES7000 with the maximum of 32 Intel processors would deliver 16.8 billion flight segment analyses per day, continuing the near-linear scaling.

In today's demonstration, the Windows 2000 Job Object Management Resource Partitioning feature played a key role in allocating processor resources to the Amadeus application and enabling the steep increases in the workload.

"Amadeus and ITA Software are proud to participate in this forum," said Jose A. Tazon, president and CEO, Amadeus. "We are pleased to have the opportunity to demonstrate how the combination of Unisys ES7000 Intel-based mainframe and Windows 2000 is helping us enhance our leadership in applying technology to continually improve customer service. The dramatic improvements in the price/performance of enterprise-class computing made possible by Unisys, Microsoft and Intel represent a genuine breakthrough for large-scale, global electronic business."
 
Amadeus Solution Benefits from Unisys/Microsoft Alliance
 

The ES7000 provides an array of computing capabilities required for enterprise-class e-business computing and well known to users of large-scale computers, but unprecedented in computing environments based on Microsoft and Intel technology.

The partitioning capability of the ES7000 enables administrators to create "servers within a server," executing multiple functions in heterogeneous operating environments within the same system. It features the flexibility to redefine and reallocate server resources -- memory, processors and input/output (I/O) channels -- to meet changing requirements on the fly, without interruptions to processing. These advantages enable the ES7000 to match the performance of UNIX systems in enterprise-class e-business and other critical applications at a fraction of the price.

The ES7000 is also ideally equipped to take maximum advantage of the advanced Windows 2000 capabilities supporting enterprise-class computing.

For example, in addition to the Windows 2000 Job Object Management Resource Partitioning feature, the demonstration of the Amadeus application drew on other Windows 2000 Job Object Management tools to manage resources and provide detailed performance statistics. The tools are similar to those provided by the Process Manager software developed by Unisys for Microsoft Windows NT.

Those capabilities have been incorporated into Windows 2000 Datacenter Server as a result of Unisys enterprise alliance with Microsoft.

"The breakthrough scalability and performance delivered by the ES7000 and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server in supporting the Amadeus application demonstrate the power of the alliance between Unisys and Microsoft," said Lawrence A. Weinbach, Unisys chairman and chief executive officer. "Combining Microsoft's advanced Windows 2000 software with Unisys groundbreaking enterprise servers and expertise in vertical industries and services-driven solutions, we can collaborate to help clients deploy cost-effective e-business solutions that address their most mission-critical computing challenges and enable them to deliver faster and more comprehensive service to their customers."
 
About Amadeus and ITA
 
Amadeus (www.global.amadeus.net) is the world's largest global distribution system (GDS) for travel, providing online distribution, marketing and sales tools to travel professionals in 130 markets around the globe. Around 60,000 travel agency and airline office locations around the globe with over 200,000 terminals are connected to its system.

Amadeus is the only GDS to offer airlines the ability to use the same distribution functionality and tools for travel agencies and their own sales offices. Amadeus has 110 airline customers who outsource their entire distribution needs to Amadeus in this manner. These airlines are known as "system users" and have over 70,000 Amadeus terminals installed worldwide. For e-commerce, Amadeus currently powers 55 airline websites and 3000 travel agency sites around the world.

ITA Software (www.itasoftware.com) has created a new platform for travel applications. Its airfare shopping technology revolutionizes travel planning by examining every available flight and fare combination in minimal time. ITA Software offers a faster, more comprehensive, more flexible and cost-effective low-fare search application than mainframe systems. The company, staffed by software designers originally from MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, is located in Cambridge, Mass.

Amadeus acquired a 20% shareholding interest in ITA Software in 1998.
 
About Unisys
 
Unisys is an electronic business solutions company whose 36,000 employees help customers in 100 countries apply information technology to seize opportunities and overcome challenges of the Internet economy. Unisys people integrate and deliver the solutions, services, platforms and network infrastructure required by business and government to transform their organizations for success in this new era.

The company offers a rich portfolio of Unisys e-@ction Solutions for electronic business based on its expertise in vertical industry solutions, network services, outsourcing, systems integration and multivendor support, coupled with enterprise-class server and related technologies. The primary vertical markets Unisys serves worldwide include financial services, transportation, communications, publishing and commercial sectors, as well as the public sector, including federal government customers.

Unisys is headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, in the Greater Philadelphia area. For more information on the company, access the Unisys home page on the World Wide Web at www.unisys.com. Investor information can be found at www.unisys.com/investor.

http://www.unisys.com/news/releases/2000/feb/02176866.asp
 
Unisys is a registered trademark and e-@ction is a trademark of Unisys Corporation. All other brands and products referenced herein are acknowledged to be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
 
     CONTACT:  Unisys, Blue Bell
               Steve Holzman, 215/986-5098
               stephen.holzman@unisys.com
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