Leading property-management solutions provider is first in the industry to use the newly-opened 14,000 square-foot facility; Data Center will provide reliable back-up, high-speed Internet connectivity and diagnostics to support MSI’s new Web booking engine, ASP-based PMS and Corporate Services solution

PHOENIX | A significant force in the hospitality technology, marketing and services arenas, Multi-Systems Inc. (MSI) has recently expanded its property-management system series to include an ASP-based PMS (EnterprisePM) and a Web booking engine for WinPM. As a result, the Pegasus Scottsdale Data Center (SDC) in Arizona will serve as the hosting facility for these solutions and their supporting databases. Eventually the company’s ASP-based Corporate Services solution also will be hosted by the Pegasus SDC.

The 14,000 square-foot facility provides MSI with a multi-level, access-controlled environment, complete with state-of-the-art environmental controls, pre-cabled network infrastructure, sophisticated data security, fire detection and prevention, and hands-on troubleshooting 24/7/365. MSI is the first hospitality company to use the Pegasus Solutions Inc. facility as a host for its data repository.

“We are continually growing our relationship with Pegasus Solutions—this time by partnering to protect the industry’s most advanced, secure and reliable solutions we have developed,” said Rick Munson, MSI President. “Pegasus clearly understands the hospitality technology industry, as well as, the intricacies involved with data security, the importance of data accessibility and the need to provide an environment in which system up-time remains constant. The Pegasus SDC will provide MSI and its customers with a very secure, very robust arena to store data and manage our systems remotely in a true ASP environment.”

In November, MSI announced a joint development interface between Pegasus’ RezView® central-reservation system and MSI’s WinPM property-management system, which has resulted in the most advanced, integrated PMS/CRS solution available.

Keith Cook, Pegasus product manager, said the company will make its hosting services available to any industry partner.

“When designing the new Pegasus Data Center in Scottsdale (which opened in January 2003) we began with more than 10 years of experience and knowledge in operating a high-availability Data Center,” Cook said. “We built the new Scottsdale Data Center to be even more sophisticated, reliable, scalable, efficient, and secure than our previous facilities, thereby creating a solid foundation on which to continue building and growing Pegasus’ service offerings.

“We are pleased that MSI has agreed to become the first to co-locate its ASP services to the Pegasus SDC,” he said. “Together Pegasus and MSI are doing great things.”

Property management off site

Rick Bennett, MSI director of software development, said MSI’s ASP-based EnterprisePM solution is ideal for hotels that lack the capacity to manage systems onsite.

“Through the Pegasus SDC, we can offer hotels access to a cost-effective, centralized PMS with a robust database to support and securely store all property and guest preference information,” Bennett said. “We anticipate the ASP-based EnterprisePM version will become as quickly coveted by limited-service hotels as our Windows-based WinPM solution is for the full-service segment.”

Because a hotel’s own Web site is its lowest-cost, highest-return distribution channel, Bennett said MSI is also launching for the first time its own Web booking engine at HITEC, June 19-22 at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

“The challenge has been identifying the best time to introduce a Web booking engine to our hotels,” Bennett said. “MSI will not develop technology just to ‘keep up with the Joneses.’ The release of our Web booking engine was strategically scheduled to meet our customers’ eventual demand and financial parameters.”

Adding value, bookings, satisfaction

MSI’s Web booking engine will enable hotels to accept reservation transactions in real-time when interfaced with WinPM. With a proprietary Web booking engine, hotels will give customers the ability to check hotel availability directly through the hotel PMS—not through intermediaries—with just a click. This gives the hotel complete, real-time control of its inventory. It also adds perceived value to the guest because he or she is informed of the hotel’s cancellation policies, and it eliminates the need for the customer to prepay and avoids snags with cancellation or change-date policies.

“MSI is continually developing new ways to increase value to our customers and their guests,” Munson said. “The Pegasus Scottsdale Data Center will provide us with all the means necessary to keep servicing our customers and developing additional ASP-based applications.”

In the near future, Munson said MSI’s Corporate Services solution also will be stored at the SDC. Corporate Services is a centralized, Web-based reporting facility. As a true ASP, this division meets a hotel’s reporting needs, from providing guest profile information for sales-and-marketing promotions to assigning guest points for loyalty programs to collecting, reviewing and processing travel agent commissions.

“By managing data in a secure, centralized environment, hotels will be empowered to place more emphasis on marketing, which ultimately strengthens the value of their assets,” he said.

For more information on MSI and its new ASP-based solutions, call Bridget Oliva at 1-800-331-7890 or email bridget.oliva@msisolutions.com. For information on the Pegasus Scottsdale Data Center, call Keith Cook at (480) 624-6322 or email keith.cook@pegs.com