Microsoft chosen to become Amadeus’ cloud partner to accelerate digital advances

Global strategic partnership struck between the two technology giants

Amadeus has agreed a new global strategic partnership with technology giant Microsoft.

The GDS and European travel tech giant says the deal will “harness cloud technology to innovate and explore new products and solutions and create smoother travel experiences in the future”.

The partnership brings together Microsoft’s cloud platforms and collaboration and enterprise technologies with Amadeus’ expertise and innovation in travel technology.

The firms said they will work together in three specific areas:

• Foster collaboration to create new hyper-personalised services and industry offerings tailored to the unique needs of the travel ecosystem;

• Joint innovation and product development, bringing expertise and agile development capabilities to deliver cutting-edge travel solutions offering more relevant and sophisticated end-user experiences;

• Moving Amadeus’ technical platform to the public cloud using Microsoft Azure technology foundations for greater agility and resiliency. Microsoft will become Amadeus’ preferred cloud provider.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft chief executive, said: “Advances in digital technology are rapidly redefining every aspect of work and life, including how we travel.

“Together with Amadeus, we will apply the power of Azure and its AI capabilities to create new frictionless experiences for travellers worldwide and reimagine the travel industry going forward.”

Combined teams will collaborate to drive faster delivery of new cloud-based solutions, leading to “more seamless travel experiences”, Amadeus said.

Initial efforts are expected to focus on establishing more integrated?business?travel journeys and enabling closer collaboration between?travel and health authorities.

Luis Maroto, president and chief executive of Amadeus, said: “Amadeus’ strength is built on our people and our history of pushing the boundaries of travel technology, providing our customers with better and ever more innovative ways to achieve their goals.

“From our long experience with cloud technology, we are convinced it is the right systems architecture to deliver on this continued commitment, and that Microsoft is the right partner to help us achieve our goals together.

“This includes the opportunity to explore, design and develop new solutions that take full advantage of cloud technology.”

Christophe Bousquet, chief technology officer, added Amadeus will now accelerate its journey to the public cloud with Microsoft.

“Cloud has long been a part of Amadeus’ strategy: we were the first company in the travel industry to run entirely on open systems following the decommission of mainframes in our data centre back in 2017.”

Denis Lacroix, Amadeus senior vice president cloud transformation program, said:

“Public cloud technology has evolved in such a way that it can now deliver an improved level of service than was previously possible through our private infrastructure.”

The cloud transition will allow Amadeus increased flexibility and to scale its operational capacity up or down or to adjust it as needed given market and demand conditions.

Amadeus said it also expects to improve the resiliency of its solutions and services to customers, and to make a step change in the delivery of new technologies, while increasing the security of systems and data.