The replacement of three separate operating systems with SCOOpenServer 5.0.5 will help promote rapid growth at international travel firm Abercrombie & Kent Southern Africa and will eventually enable the company to launch a fully automated online Internet booking system.
Paul Dougan, managing director of ABData, the company that installed the system, said the previous combination of Linux, NT and Novell on several servers caused significant problems and on several occasions led to the loss of critical data. "It was slow, unreliable, not truly multi-tasking and an administrative nightmare".
"With everything now consolidated in one server running SCO OpenServer 5, the productivity of the company as a whole has significantly improved, and most importantly, enables them to run business specific applications much faster than in the past."
With offices throughout South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia, the Abercrombie & Kent Southern Africa network forms an integrated unit and allows the approximately 70 users to seamlessly communicate with each other and gives them instant access to all pertinent information.
"One of the most important aspects of being a tour operator is having instant access to travel information like flight schedules, fares and rates and all of this information is now available across the network," Dougan said.
"A very important issue is the fact that the company IT manager can now concentrate on expanding the facilities available on the network - including establishing an Internet presence - instead of continuous disaster recovery. In the past the network crashed with monotonous regularity leading to considerable downtime. It will now be rock-solid stable and managing it is going to be a breeze," he said.
Each employee of Abercrombie & Kent will also be able to function much more efficiently due to the extra facilities available to them on the network.
"We estimate that there will be roughly a threefold increase in productivity," Dougan said. The network was brought in on time and within budget and represents a highly cost effective application of IT resources.
"We are proud of what we`ve accomplished here and with this as a reference site, our next step is convincing the Abercrombie & Kent group world-wide that SCO UNIX is the way to go," Dougan said.
Oliver Ryder, regional finance director of Abercrombie & Kent Southern Africa said the travel industry is being "dramatically changed" by technology.
"Abercrombie & Kent Southern Africa is determined to drive ahead with the technological changes needed to safeguard our customers requirements. The very recent implementation of the SCO Unix server is one part of this strategy and gives us stable, reliable and above all, accurate, real-time information systems that are paramount for our business. The initial results are very encouraging," he said.
He said AB Data had been very helpful in their approach and to the challenges faced by the company.
"Right now, we are only scratching the tip of the iceberg and we will be discussing much larger ideas with them in the near future. We are extremely confident that Abercrombie & Kent Southern Africa will be geared for the very exciting times ahead," Ryder said.
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