Sabre Holding includes three brands: Travelocity, the online travel booking site; Sabre Travel Network, a distribution system for travel agencies; and Sabre Airline Solutions, which provides software and services to airlines.
Sabre originally outsourced its IT to EDS back in 2001, in a 10-year deal valued at $2.2bn. Beforehand, Sabre had operated its own data centers and handled its own desktop support, as well as desktop support for its clients, according to Al Comeaux, a Sabre spokesperson.
The deal wasn’t simply an outsourcing arrangement. It transferred a number of assets over to EDS, including Sabre’s infrastructure outsourcing contracts with companies such as American Airlines, US Airways, Gulf Air, and Dollar/Thrifty Rent-A-Car. EDS also took over those data centers and network, desktop, and midrange systems that supported Sabre’s outsourcing and transaction processing business. Sabre held on to certain contracts and assets for its travel marketing and distribution business, including its airline software.
Some 4,000 employees transferred over to EDS, according to a Sabre filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission at the time. Overall, the asset transfers accounted for $661m of the deal.
As for the outsourcing component of the contract, EDS took over the management and operation of infrastructure, including Sabre’s data centers, applications hosting, some development work, network management, and data assurance.
Under the new deal, which takes the contract through 2014, EDS will continue these underlying services and automate certain systems for Sabre. While the initial 2001 deal was heavily focused on Sabre’s mainframe environment, the updated contract will focus on mostly midrange system for its open systems. EDS spokesperson Blake Hull said that this open systems work now accounts for more than half of Sabre’s business.
