In IT circles there is much talk of the so-called fourth wave or Smart Computing.
In the same way that the web changed our access to data and information - we now have to think that Smart Computing will have a similar impact on our computing environments and applications.
In a recent piece for Forrester's IT customers, analyst Mike Gilpin discusses the need for applications to match the technology - and nowhere is this more relevant than in travel.
The reason is that if you stand back and think about all the dynamic data needed to make a decision the plethora of sources and forms makes a perfect answer impossible. However the current dilemma of either brute force search and discard vs caching is dealing in old paradigms of thought.
We need to change the how we think about search.
Already we are beginning to see some commercialization of this new thinking. Bing (amongst others) are thinking more and more how to apply Smart Computing to the search process.
While still in its infancy this new thinking will ultimately pay off in a better customer experience and a change in the order of Travel Industry IT.
I cannot imagine anyone thinks that caching is a good idea and a permeate solution to search. And clearly brute force hits are too expensive.
So both Amadeus and Galileo (with its purported "Super Cache") are pursuing a continuation of a commercial model that keeps them in the center of the universe but with the costs rising both above the line (GDS fees) and below the line (technology and search hits).
Not a good idea and not sustainable. The cost of travel provision will keep on rising if we allow this to continue.
We need to find a better way to address how search is delivered. This is not a big bang type of development but a number of different moving parts have to be put in place. And it is not all technology. The current transaction based with extra top-ups has to change.
But don't hold your breath. The strangle grip that the GDS players have on both the neutral distribution and the airline IT side of life makes it hard to effect change.
But I know that search is not a simple thing and that some big players are really getting excited about it. Perhaps someone slaving away in a garage will find something.
Or how about the true Troogle will emerge from Google Labs as a new technology for airline price/availability search and it will blow us all away.
In IT circles there is much talk of the so-called fourth wave or Smart Computing.
In the same way that the web changed our access to data and information - we now have to think that Smart Computing will have a similar impact on our computing environments and applications.
In a recent piece for Forrester's IT customers, analyst Mike Gilpin discusses the need for applications to match the technology - and nowhere is this more relevant than in travel.
The reason is that if you stand back and think about all the dynamic data needed to make a decision the plethora of sources and forms makes a perfect answer impossible.
However the current dilemma of either brute force search and discard vs caching is dealing in old paradigms of thought. We need to change the how we think about search.
Already we are beginning to see some commercialization of this new thinking. Bing (amongst others) are thinking more and more how to apply Smart Computing to the search process.
While still in its infancy this new thinking will ultimately pay off in a better customer experience and a change in the order of travel industry IT.
I cannot imagine anyone thinks that caching is a good idea and a permanent solution to search. And clearly brute force hits are too expensive.
So both Amadeus and Galileo (with its purported "Super Cache") are pursuing a continuation of a commercial model that keeps them in the center of the universe but with the costs rising both above the line (GDS fees) and below the line (technology and search hits).
Not a good idea and not sustainable. The cost of travel provision will keep on rising if we allow this to continue.
We need to find a better way to address how search is delivered. This is not a big bang type of development but a number of different moving parts have to be put in place. And it is not all technology.
The current transaction based with extra top-ups has to change. But don't hold your breath.
The strangle grip that the GDS players have on both the neutral distribution and the airline IT side of life makes it hard to effect change.
But I know that search is not a simple thing and that some big players are really getting excited about it. Perhaps someone slaving away in a garage will find something.
Or how about the true Troogle will emerge from Google Labs as a new technology for airline price/availability search and it will blow us all away.