It's a bit long on the history for industry people who already know that much, but this
Information Weekpiece on Orbitz Worldwide has some interesting tidbits about the company's 'Austin' technology, including the unlikely possibility of a U.S. rollout this year.
Head to page two for the techhy details, but here's a quick summary: "Orbitz's new online platform is a component-based system that uses a great deal of the Java code underpinning Orbitz's current platform. What's different is that it can support multiple Web sites, both internal and external to Orbitz. It features standards-based user-interface technology able to incorporate dynamic updates and accessible from a range of devices. The idea is to be able to plug in data feeds from Orbitz's systems, like CheapTickets.com, and those of its partners and potential partners. It's multilingual and multicurrency, yet location specific. For example, it understands what a domestic flight is wherever it's being accessed; previously, "domestic" was hard-wired into the Orbitz system as referring to the United States."