Novell and PeopleSoft seal Lufthansa contracts

German airline Lufthansa has signed two massive IT contracts with Novell and PeopleSoft to provide directory services, security and CRM for its 70,000 workers.

Defying the steep decline in the worldwide air travel industry since the 11 September tragedy, the airline has however declined to make public the cost of the contracts.

However Markus Krauss, director enterprise solutions for Novell in EMEA, said: "This is one of Novell's largest ever contracts.

"This provides the foundation for every application Novell wants to integrate with one secure framework, and includes nearly all the products in the Novell portfolio."

Novell is guaranteed to be kept on until at least 2005, with further phases potentially after that. Novell will provide its meta directory products and iChain security products. It will also provide consultancy, technical support and education services for Lufthansa employees.

The rollout, which started in December but has only now been made public, will involve 600 servers across 400 different locations.

Lufthansa's contract with PeopleSoft will see the ERP vendor provide it with customer service systems to give more detailed personal information to customers. Lufthansa has previously been known as an SAP customer.

The software will also take three years to roll-out, beginning in April 2002.

Lufthansa decided to sign the contracts despite the downturn in air ticket sales in recent months which has seen most airlines getting rid of staff and some going bust.

Immediately after 11 September, all projects at Lufthansa were halted and reassessed.

Novell's Krauss said the fact that it then decided to go ahead with the Novell contract was a ringing endorsement of their technology.

He said: "Ours is a secure platform, and the deal is all about enhancing the security of the infrastructure. This has become even more important post 11 September."