By Felicity Ussher, 18 December 1998 00:20
NEWS Ferry giant Stena Line's Swedish headquarters has slammed reports that its online booking service does not function outside Sweden. IT director, Hans Bjorkborg, insisted that the central system is already running in Denmark, Germany and Sweden, and will go live in the UK and Norway next month. The news follows widespread rumours that Stena Line's in-house system did not support business rules for the rest of Europe and that regional offices would have to develop their own online passenger services. But Bjorkborg quashed those fears, which had spread as far as the UK office. "I can confirm that there will be one system solution and it will fit into each country's business rules," he told Silicon.com. "In the UK, we are just waiting for an OK from Barclays, which will authorise credit card payments and the encryption process." Employee morale plummeted as the rumours reached customers and partners in Sweden. But Bjorkborg is ensuring that no one is left in doubt over the system's success. "It's a unique strategy, which enables us to develop the ecommerce environment successively, not all in one go," he said. Stena Line developed the new client interface and middleware over its Digital Open VMS legacy system, which is around 12 years old. Its next step will be to develop a Web-based booking system for freight services.
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