Amadeus’ Eberhard Haag selected as a Premier 100 IT Leader for 2009 by Computerworld Magazine

Veteran technology executive recognized for leadership that has transformed Amadeus' capabilities in serving its global travel customers

Madrid, Spain, January 21, 2009 - Amadeus, a global leader in technology and distribution solutions for the travel and tourism industry, today announced that Eberhard Haag, the company's Executive Vice President of Global Operations and General Manager of Data Processing, has been selected by Computerworld Magazine as a Premier 100 IT Leader for 2009.

The leading source of technology news and information for IT influencers worldwide, U.S.-based Computerworld annually honors 100 IT executives from around the world who have led their organizations in key areas: by mentoring and motivating employees; envisioning innovative solutions to business challenges; and effectively managing and executing IT strategies. The honorees for 2009, including Haag, will be recognized at Computerworld’s Premier 100 IT Leaders Conference held March 1-3, 2009, in Orlando, Fla.

Eberhard Haag is the head of global operations and data processing for Amadeus worldwide. Leading a global operations team of 780 people, he oversees Amadeus’ massive global data processing center in Erding, Germany, which drives the systems and networks for all of Amadeus' technology products and solutions in 217 markets around the world.

Haag spearheaded Amadeus’ eight-year transition from a legacy Transaction Processing Facility (TPF) mainframe environment to a more effective open systems, service-oriented architecture. His leadership has enabled Amadeus to diversify its business and offer more advanced, customer-centric travel applications that meet current needs and anticipate future ones. Haag led his team in shifting over the company’s extreme data processing functions and numerous customer applications to new open architecture. This was achieved without significant impact to Amadeus' customers or core daily business of travel reservations processing, while also improving quality of service in parallel.

“I am honored to accept this recognition from Computerworld and be part of such an impressive group of IT professionals,” said Haag. “However, it is my team at the Amadeus data processing center, that truly deserves the award, which was achieved only through their hard work and dedication, day in and day out.”

Haag added that in terms of travel distribution, Amadeus was the first-mover and has evolved the farthest to future-proof its IT infrastructure. Haag said his data center team stays on the leading edge of IT and is currently focused on key technologies such as implementation of open source software like Linux, MySQL, and JBoss, and virtualization of storage and servers with the objective of building the massive grid for Amadeus' "transaction factory."

This year’s recipients were selected from over 1,000 nominees, who were measured against Computerworld’s IT Leadership Index, a set of characteristics that describes executives who guide the effective use of IT in their organizations, and evaluated by the editors and by a panel of outside judges. The candidates repsenting numerous industries were asked about a range of topics, including their backgrounds, work experiences, special accomplishments and leadership styles. Additional information can be found at www.premier100.com.

“The 2009 Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leaders, more so than ever before, are making a clean break with traditional IT strategies and roles and creating altogether new ones,” said Scot Finnie, editor-in-chief, Computerworld. “The shell-shocked economy and changing forces in the technology environment are spurring these smart, agile IT leaders to seize new opportunities.”