Now that Hewlett-Packard Co has acquired its own airline software ISV, Open Skies (CI No 3,524), its former partner – reservation giant Sabre – has become a competitor. HP though, maintains that it is focused on a different part of the market, at least for the time being. Roy Breslawski, marketing manager for HP’s commercial systems division says the other part of this is that we really don’t have large business with the people that are in this part of the business. HP has some really large airline customers, but we are not a significant part of the airline reservations companies business or a computer supplier to those companies so there’s no real conflict here. The reality is that Sabre will be a competitor as we go through this business. HP is expected round out its airline market offerings bit-by-bit, but won’t say how. It only talks about what it has today. That includes the core reservation engine, the check-in software that runs at the airport and the revenue accounting applications. It says it has automated self-check in software that goes onto kiosks that airlines can put in airports so they don’t have to actually have a person staffing for people to check themselves in, as well as revenue management software so the software that helps airlines price their seats to get maximum yield for every flight that takes off. HP says it doesn’t plan similar acquisitions in other vertical markets. á
