Press Room
Orbitz and BlueTie Launch Evolved, Integrated Email and Travel Booking Capability
BlueTie Integrates Orbitz’ Travel Planning Capabilities into Its Hosted Email and Calendar Solution for Travel Search and Bookings
CHICAGO and ROCHESTER, N.Y., April 24, 2007 — Orbitz (www.orbitz.com) and BlueTie, Inc.today announced the availability of travel booking integration capabilities within BlueTie’s hosted e-mail, calendaring services and productivity tools for small businesses. For the first time, BlueTie’s new travel planning Featuretisement™ lets BlueTie users search for time-relevant flight and hotel options from within their planning calendar. A demo of this Featuretisement is available at http://travel.bluetie.com.
“Today’s launch introduces a new monetization model for Web-based software,” said David Koretz, President and CEO of BlueTie, Inc. “Instead of hassling users with irrelevant banner and text ads, we are monetizing BlueTie’s hosted email and calendar solutions by developing features with best-in-class partners like Orbitz.com that generate revenue while being unobtrusive, and even valuable to the user.”
BlueTie users simply enter select keywords such as “flights” or “hotels” when planning within their calendar to access a familiar step-by-step travel planning interface. Following a user query, Orbitz immediately searches and responds with available inventory. BlueTie then displays within a user’s calendar the flight or lodging options that match a search’s date and time criteria.
BlueTie users will have Orbitz’ global access to flights from more than 400 airlines, rooms at more than 65,000 hotel and lodging properties, and 13 rental car companies.
Through Featuretisements, BlueTie provides unobtrusive, on-demand access to business services that simplify everyday tasks. BlueTie is teaming up with best in class partners, like Orbitz, to offer services that are relevant to small businesses such as software applications, travel and search engines. Featuretisements are designed to be an easy, natural extension of users' normal workflows. There is no banner, text, or other advertising. Moreover, BlueTie's model is cost per action-based. Partners pay only when their services are generating revenue. Additional planned offerings include blogs, dinner reservations and entertainment ticket purchasing.
“The BlueTie hosted email and calendar technology is a promising and exciting new distribution channel for Orbitz.com,” said Steve Barnhart, president and Chief Executive Officer of Orbitz Worldwide, a division of Travelport Ltd. (www.travelport.com). “This strategic alliance is another example of Orbitz working with best-in-class technology companies to better serve our customers needs – especially the growing demand of the unmanaged small or independent business traveler.”
The alliance with BlueTie, which has a commitment to small business services, follows Orbitz’ February 2007 launch of its own road warrior micro site for unmanaged small or independent business travelers, available through Orbitz.com.
Other Web-based e-mail and software companies rely on banner ads or keyword-based text ads to deliver marketing messages and product offerings to users. In contrast, BlueTie’s Featuretisement partnerships serve both users and advertisers by providing relevant functionality, like travel planning tools, to users while simultaneously providing advertisers with access to new customers.
About Orbitz
Orbitz (www.orbitz.com) is a leading online travel company that enables travelers to search for and purchase a broad array of travel products, including airline tickets, lodging, rental cars, cruises and vacation packages. Since launching its website www.orbitz.com to the general public in June 2001, Orbitz has become the third largest online travel site based on gross travel bookings. On Orbitz, consumers can search more than 400 airlines, more than 65,000 lodging properties worldwide and 13 car rental companies. Orbitz is a Travelport brand. Travelport (www.travelport.com) is one of the largest and most geographically diverse travel companies, dedicated to creating the exceptional travel experiences the world demands.
About BlueTie, Inc.
BlueTie is the leading provider of hosted email and calendaring solutions for small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) and service providers worldwide. BlueTie revolutionized the Software as a Service sector in 1999 by introducing the first hosted suite of small business tools that require no hardware, software or IT support. BlueTie continues to lead the SaaS movement by delivering incredibly simple applications that are fast, inexpensive and reliable. BlueTie's software is licensed by channel partners, ISPs and other service providers. For more information about BlueTie, visit www.BlueTie.com or call 1-800-BlueTie.
For Further Information Contact:
Rob Chamberlin, BlueTie, 585.586.2000 x1025, rchamberlin@bluetie.com
or
Jim Cohn, Orbitz, LLC, 312-260-8413, jim.cohn@orbitz.com