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The CONFIRM Project 

The Confirm Project used to be something that was only whispered about within TPF circles.  During its roller-coaster lifetime Confirm promised to revolutionise the way the public accessed travel and leisure services, it also blighted the careers of numerous TPFers and all but finished the managerial careers of some.

ComputerWorld analysed what has come to represent the worst TPF-based project of them all:

"Travel system is Confirm-ed disaster

AMR's Confirm reservation system was a historic
$125m flop. On the heels of its hugely successful
Sabre airline reservation system, AMR, the parent
company of American Airlines, formed a joint
venture with Marriott International, Hilton Hotels and
Budget Rent A Car in the late 1980s to build a
similar system for the travel industry. But Confirm, as
the project was called, wasn't to be. In fact, the
effort is viewed as one of the worst IT failures ever
for its mismanagement, questionable ethics and
unworkable software.

AMR's information systems unit in Dallas was the
lead developer on Confirm, which was originally due
in June 1992 for no more than $55,7m. Yet Confirm
started to miss deadlines and cost estimates several
months after development began.

Specifications were unclear, unskilled programmers
were assigned to the project and mainframe-based
transaction-processing software couldn't be
integrated with a related mainframe decision-support
system. Moreover, one year into design and
development, Confirm had already fallen one year
behind schedule.

Marriott and Budget started asking questions in
1990 but were assured that Confirm would work
and that programmers would make up time and meet
the deadline.

In April 1992, just three months before it was slated
to go live, Confirm failed tests at Los Angeles-based
Hilton. AMR also told its partners in a letter that it
needed another 15 to 18 months.

"The individuals whom we gave responsibility for
managing Confirm have proven to be inept [and]
concealed a number of important technical and
performance problems," the AMR letter said.

The legendary Max Hopper, who had been
instrumental in Sabre's development, was
vice-chairman of AMR's IT unit at the time, though
not directly involved in the daily work of Confirm.
However, he acknowledged in a note to his
employees that some Confirm managers "did not
disclose the true status of the project in a timely
manner. This has created more difficult problems - of
both ethics and finance - than would have existed if
those people had come forward with accurate
information." After consuming almost four years and
$125m, Confirm was effectively dead.

In September 1992, AMR sued Budget, Hilton and
Marriott; Marriott then sued AMR. The suits were
settled out of court for undisclosed terms. Hopper
recently declined to discuss Confirm, citing the secret
settlements. AMR was mainly to blame, but all sides
acted unprofessionally, says Effy Oz.

Executives at AMR "simply lied to their
client-partners," adds Oz, who has studied Confirm.
"The partners were irresponsible in not asking more
questions more often and in accepting at face value
all that [AMR] told them."

Budget, Hilton and Marriott today use their own -
separate - reservation systems. "

Whilst this does not directly relate to Sabre and its decision to move away from TPF it does illustrate a willingness to be carried along by a dream.  In this case a dream endorsed and built upon by eager partners desperate to gain advantage in the highly competitive travel & leisure marketplace.   They believed that siding with AMR, the power behind American Airlines and the Sabre system, would allow them to leapfrog competitors in the race to dominate global travel & leisure.

Sensible, sane executives decided on this joint venture and ploughed huge amounts of money into it to make their vision a reality.  Instead they parted acrimoniously with their money lost and their vision in tatters.

Perhaps Sabre's vision for their future offerings to the travel & leisure industry will become reality.  Perhaps their trust in EDS & Compaq to provide the foundation on which to erect their dream of an all-encompassing service to the travelling community will prove well placed.   Certainly time will tell, and equally certainly this decision will cost all involved a great deal of money.  With all projects of this size and scope, where all aspects cannot have been thoroughly explored before the necessary decisions to proceed or abort must be made, there is an element of risk.