Unfortunately, the company supporting that package went into liquidation in 1998 while it was also becoming evident that the inherited version of Unix was out of date. This meant expensive upgrading would soon be necessary. It was about that time that Edy saw a presentation of the ACEnet concept at the Brussels Travel Fair. He immediately recognized that ACEnet would not only solve his Unix-based hardware problem but would also be an economical solution to the obsolescence of his applications software. An ASP is an organization that leases access to its servers and software packages through a dial-up connection, a leased line, a private network or the Internet.
Travel agencies connect to the system through a private frame relay network.
For this they only need PC's on which a thin client is installed. They pay a monthly fee for the use of the system depending on their size and the volume of their transactions. Prior to the release of ACEnet, travel agents like Interticket had to invest in in-house software solutions, sometimes linked to accountancy systems. They had to make their daily back-ups, employ people to keep the system running, pay for upgrades and pay for the use of a help desk. In short they spent too much time and money keeping their system running with a resultant impact on their operational costs.