Lotus portal links worldwide United Airlines staff

Computerworld - Boasting some of the oldest computer systems in corporate America and a highly mobile workforce, United Airlines Inc. of Chicago this week rolled out a brand-new corporate intranet aimed at linking its worldwide employees.
The company expects almost 40,000 employees to be connected by the end of the year and 130,000 current workers and retirees to be plugged into the system by the 2001.
Ajay Singh, director of research and development operations for United, said the company will offer sales documents, human resources information and corporate travel planning through the intranet portal.
The airline has spent the past year customizing the Domino R5 and Sametime Instant Messaging products from Cambridge, Mass.-based Lotus Development Corp. to create the system.
"Ours is not an easy system to engineer," Singh said. "We had to build something specific to meet our needs."
United, like other airlines, was an early entrant into the computer world and many of its systems date back to the 1960s.
To obtain the data in its legacy systems, United used BEA Systems Inc.'s Tuxedo package to perform the needed messaging duties.
"We use that to pull the information from our back end and then we use the Lotus technology to put it on the portal," Singh explained.
The airline field tested the system with 5,000 employees in recent months and has deemed it ready for takeoff. Employees will also be able to hold online conferences, perform instant messaging and design project plans on the intranet portal.
Singh hopes to expand the technology during the next year so employees will be able to access the system from an external Internet source.
"We have people travelling all over the world and we need to keep them connected," he said.
Singh said he couldn't disclose the cost of the deal.

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