Measuring market orientation of Muscle Pharm Corp. (MSLP:US) REAL LIFECASE STUDY – REACHING NEW HEIGHTS | Page 8

Reaching new heights - Open source software application SabreSonic® Res.


Use criteria (setup costs, usage costs, and end-user support)



Integration criteria (modularity, collaboration with other projects, compliance with
standards, and developer support)

We omit scoring in our assessment but use descriptions for each criteria category.
Company

Company
So lution

Product Criteria
(Maturity,
platforms,
popularity, design
quality)

Use Criteria
(Set up costs, usage
costs, and end-user
support)

Sabre
Holdings

SabreSonic Res

IBM, Windows, 
SAAS

Web-based
Market leader

High quality design

Low set up costs
No additional usage
costs
Dedicated end-user 

support


High set up costs

Low usage costs

Dedicated end-user 
support






Amadeus

Altea
Reservation





Travelport

IBS


iPort Departure

and Load
Control Suite 


iFly Res







Lufthansa

NetLine/Sched

IBM, Windows, 
SAAS

Web-based with 
offline capability
Major market
player
High quality design
IBM, Windows, 
SAAS

N/A

Large market
player
High quality design
IBM, Windows, 
SAAS

JEE2 runtime

environment
Smaller market
player
High quality design




Integration Criteria
(modularity,
collaboration with
other projects,
standards, and
developer support)
Native solution
currently used across
AA group
Modular design
Native integration
Meets standards
Developer support
Modular design
Native integration
Meets standards
Developer support

Open
Source/
Proprietary

Open
Source
(Apache)

Open
Source
(Linux)

High Set up costs
Low usage costs
Dedicated end-user
support






Modular design
Native integration
Meets standards
Developer support

Open
Source

High set up costs
Low usage costs
Dedicated end-user
support






Systemic design
Unknown
Meets standards
Developer support

N/A

High set up costs

Medium usage costs 
Dedicated end-user 
support


Modular design
Native integration
Meets standards
Developer support

Proprietary
(SAP)

Table 1: showing comparison between different OSS Reservation Booking Systems

As shown in Table 1, all the reservation software solutions appear to meet similar functional, usage
and integration criteria. However, a critical factor for our selection of SabreSonic Res is switching
costs. This cost is flagged in the assessment model as “set up costs”, and for organisations as large as
airlines, switching costs can be prohibitive. Switching from a native platform like Sabre would involve
significant training and implementation costs. Sabre has been used by American Airlines since the
1950s and switching from this operational platform would be prohibitive, especially considering the
marginal benefit from using other systems.
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