NEW ORLEANS-Nokia Corp. announced an agreement with IBM Corp. and Sabre for a pilot project designed to provide a travel interactive service for users equipped with Wireless Application Protocol phones.
The carrier-independent solution is an enterprise product, requiring installation behind the corporate firewall, provided by IBM.
It combines Sabre’s Business Travel Solutions, IBM’s e-business technologies and WAP phones from Nokia. When launched, it will allow users to request itineraries, change flights or search for alternative flights and receive notification of flight changes from the airline.
The information in eXtensible Markup Language on the Internet is converted by IBM for Wireless Markup Language, read by the WAP phone when requests are made from the phone. Notifications of flight changes are sent to the user via short messaging service.
The solution also requires a WAP-enabled server to be installed in the enterprise intranet system so mobile employees can make use of it.
The pilot program will begin in the United States by the fourth quarter, Nokia said, with plans to implement it worldwide next year.
