Coming in the wake Sabre’s new deal with Vietnam Airlines, the travel tech service provider has kicked-off June by declaring its intention to “change the business of travel” with a potentially paradigm-shifting partnership with Microsoft.

The new collaboration will see the transfer of Sabre’s commercial applications to Microsoft Azure by “investing cloud development expertise and services in support of Sabre’s vision to lead an industry evolution in retailing, distribution and fulfilment.”

“Microsoft is more than a technology provider for us. Their team will be a key asset in our transformation”

Vish Saoji, Sabre CTO, said:“Cloud technology is critical to our development of a microservices architecture, which will offer our customers bite-sized functionality that can be used independently or combined to build large, complex applications with accelerated speed to market,”

The partnership with Microsoft will see the two tech companies work in tandem to help Sabre’s seize even greater mastery over its data and, through the utilization of AI and analytics, develop new products for its travel and hospitality clients.

As Sabre continues to evolve its cloud strategy, the company’s customers will be able to offer travellers more personalized and integrated experiences – especially important for Sabre’s strategy to innovate beyond NDC and deliver next-generation retailing and distribution solutions.

“Sabre is an established leader in the travel technology space, and we are excited to work closely with them to draw out data-driven insights that can re-imagine the business of travel,” said Kate Johnson, president of Microsoft US.

“Microsoft’s cloud services will bring a range of new capabilities to Sabre that unlocks even more value for their customers and will help them to succeed in transforming their industry with intelligent technologies,” she added.

Sabre CIO, Joe DiFonzo, concluded: “The cloud presents an opportunity to rapidly innovate, create and deliver new business value for Sabre and our customers. Microsoft is more than a technology provider for us. Their team will be a key asset in our transformation, through proven leadership in the cloud space along with industry expertise and best practice methodology to help us realize our vision.”