DALLAS -- Industry veteran Paul Blackney said he will serve in a
consulting role at Xtra On-line, where he was recently named
chairman of the board.
The former president and chief executive of Apollo said he plans
to travel here from his home in Chicago several days a month to
consult with Xtra in all areas of its business.
He plans to raise the profile of the company, which produces
do-it-yourself booking software for the corporate market, and to
advise the technical department in its next, Web-based version. The
Web-based product is slated for release in the second quarter of
this year.
In discussing the self-booking market, Blackney took a swipe at
an old competitor:
"Sabre's motivation in offering Business Travel Solutions, its
self-booking product, must be to ensure that the pain of changing
CRSs remains high," he said. "The point of any product is to keep
bookings flowing through the CRS. A number of agencies and
corporations want independence for their own legitimate business
reasons, and you only get that from an independent software firm,"
he said.
Xtra has said for a few months that it is on the verge of naming
a chief executive officer with a high industry profile. Richard
Kumpf is Xtra's president.
In an industry saturated with corporate self-booking products,
Blackney said Xtra will attempt to distinguish itself by using its
independence and small size to react quickly to marketplace
changes.
He said the function and capabilities of self-booking systems, a
relatively recent development in the travel arena, are still widely
misunderstood. "Part of the role we play at Xtra is to help the
market understand the legitimate purposes for this software," he
said.
He added that once the market begins to understand the potential
benefits, firms like Xtra may start turning a profit.