Press Release

British Airways selects Progress Software SOA Solutions to upgrade the travel experienceBEDFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 16, 2009-- Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS), a leading software provider that enables enterprises to be operationally responsive, has announced that British Airways (BA) will use its portfolio of SOA solutions as a key part of its travel program to upgrade its IT systems. This will extend to the end of 2014 and will revolutionize travel by integrating over 600 different electronic systems and processes involved in getting BA passengers in the air.

“With 300 locations around the globe, 25,000 users and more than 250 key applications, BA's goal is to transform the travel experience. The flexibility of the Progress SOA portfolio allows BA to extend the features of its e-commerce site right through to its airports, by allowing greater self-service functionality and 'plug and play' capability,” explained Gordon Penfold, CTO, BA.

The result, according to Penfold, is to drive an agile business where rollout is easier, and cost and time are reduced. “The airport environment is complex and the systems are mission critical,” he added. “Moving this to a highly automated environment is a challenge, but SOA quickly proved itself to be the right approach to achieving our goal of a fully agile environment.”

“The new SOA infrastructure is far more flexible and we are looking to roll out new services more quickly. At the same time, real-time data synchronization means information quality is improved and costs are saved thanks to reduction in data replication.”

BA will initially use Progress® Sonic® ESB, Progress® Actional® SOA Management and Progress® DataXtend® Semantic Integrator (SI) from Progress Software’s portfolio of SOA applications. Rick Reidy, president and CEO at Progress Software commented: “With Progress, BA is taking its airline’s IT infrastructure and moving the goalposts. This is a critical time for the industry, and BA’s investment will give it a competitive advantage while other carriers are cutting back.”

Looking ahead, a more flexible and integrated IT infrastructure means BA is well positioned to extend ba.com customer information, for example, into fully web-enabled passenger manifests.

“Modern air travel is dependent on more intelligent use of technology, and BA’s customers will be the first to benefit,” Reidy added.

About BA

BA is the UK's largest international scheduled airline flying to over 300 destinations at convenient times, to the best located airports.

About Progress Software Corporation

Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS) is a global software company that enables enterprises to be operationally responsive to changing conditions and customer interactions as they occur – to capitalize on new opportunities, drive greater efficiencies and reduce risk. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of best-in-class infrastructure software spanning event-driven visibility and real-time response, open integration, data access and integration, and application development and deployment – all supporting on-premises and SaaS/Cloud deployments. Progress maximizes the benefits of operational responsiveness while minimizing IT complexity and total cost of ownership. Progress can be reached at www.progress.com or +1-781-280-4000.

Source: Progress Software Corporation

Progress Software
Lisa Coulouris, 781-280-4995
lcoulour@progress.com
or
LEWIS PR
Mari Melguizo, 617-226-8840
marim@lewispr.com