Enterprise Rent-a-Car Drives Business With New IBM Servers
13 June 2000
North America's Largest Car Rental Company Will Manage Its Fleet On RS/6000 Systems
NEW YORK - IBM today announced that Enterprise Rent-A-Car, the largest car rental company in North America, with over 4,000 locations and 400,000 cars, has chosen powerful IBM RS/6000 servers to manage its global car rental management system.The St. Louis, Missouri-based company will install RS/6000 80-class servers, ranging from recently introduced midrange M80's and H80's, on up to the S80, the world's most powerful single server. The IBM systems will act as the host computing platform for Enterprise's rental management system, accelerating the ability of employees to make and track reservations and check on the status of maintenance work throughout the company's vast fleet of rental cars.
"The IBM RS/6000 servers will help us use our resources much more efficiently," said Craig Kennedy, vice president of information systems at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. "Combined with our applications, we can now provide our employees better access to crucial information such as what types of cars are available and when they're due back. Better information helps our employees provide the best possible customer service."
Enterprise's decision to select the IBM RS/6000-based solution over competing solutions was based on the their need for a powerful and scalable server platform that could grow with their business. Infused with IBM's breakthrough copper chip technology, the S80, M80 and H80 offer record-breaking performance to meet the unpredictable demands of today's e-businesses. Designed for seamless growth, RS/6000 servers can be upgraded quickly and easily, allowing customers to add additional processors in rapid-fire fashion.
IBM's award-winning UNIX operating system, AIX 4.3.3., was also a major factor in the selection process, providing Enterprise access to a large suite of applications and development tools which company officials viewed as critical in keeping ahead of new technology trends.
In addition to acting as the platform for Enterprise's rental management system, the new IBM servers will also eventually be deployed to process reservations taken on Enterprise Rent-A-Car's Web site at www.enterprise.com, enabling customers to access data on available cars and make reservations anytime, anywhere throughout the world.
"IBM's RS/6000 line of powerful and scalable UNIX servers provide leading companies such as Enterprise with the advanced computing power they need to grow their operations," said Rod Adkins, general manager, IBM Web Servers. "A wide range of customers from Fortune 500 companies to dot.com startups are choosing RS/6000 servers because they offer unparalleled performance, scalability and reliability at a price far below comparable offerings from Sun Microsystems."
About IBM RS/6000
More than 1,000,000 IBM RS/6000 systems have been shipped to over 150,000 commercial and technical customers around the world. The RS/6000 family of computers feature IBM RISC-based microprocessors and run the AIX, IBM's UNIX(c) operating system. RS/6000 products range in size and capacity from workstations, workgroup and enterprise servers, to the RS/6000 SP supercomputer. From businesses deploying advanced technologies to become more efficient and profitable, to governments and universities seeking to solve the grand challenge problems of our time, RS/6000 computers support a wide range of applications and provide the reliability, availability and price/performance that today's information technology managers demand.
IBM, RS/6000, SP and AIX are registered trademarks or trademarks of the International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, licensed exclusively through X/Open Company, Limited.
