Before some of our readers where born, Fidelio PMS was already making an impact in the Hotel Industry and in the way Hotels were managed. It was most likely the first Hotel Management Software that positioned itself as a truly international solution used by the biggest Hotel chains until this day.
Fidelio led the hotel software market for many years, the MS-DOS version of Fidelio PMS understood the needs of the hotel industry at the time and with features such as “hot keys” as well as the agility of the system its users at the time still remember it as a The Great PMS System of the time.
Opera PMS
At the end of the 90s, Opera was first announced which created a lot of hype and expectations in the Industry. Customers expected a wide range of new functionality that would help them keep up with the changes of the industry. While the solution looked impressive at the time, the expectations were not quite met.
In the early 2000s one of the first implementations of Opera took place in Spain. At the time, one of the current Mastel Partners led the technical development of Opera on the Spanish Market, and although we tried to make the process fast and successful, we were not able to progress as well as we wanted.
As the expectations for a great product in a short time where high, the reality was that the process took longer than anticipated. The migration from Fidelio to Opera was not as expected and the functionality and improvements customers looked for took some time to arrive in the solution.
The product however evolved and between 2002 and 2003 Opera became the great solution everyone had been waiting for and added value for hoteliers. With added stability, extended functionality, a massive number of interfaces and the new Oracle Database technology, Opera PMS became the leading Property Management System in the Hotel Industry.
Following the improvement of Opera PMS, the future looked bright as Opera PMS was always a step ahead. And although there are multiple solutions available on the market, with its quality and reliability Opera has become the market leading PMS Solution.
Mastel Hospitality has performed multiple studies analyse the need-coverage of Opera PMS for our customers. The results were clear, Opera PMS consistently covered 20% to 30% more requirements than any competing solution. This shows that although there are other high-quality solutions on the market, when looking at the details Opera always provided more solutions that where needed to solve business obstacles and integrations.
In recent years, Oracle has expanded its offering to the cloud. And while there was some confusion surrounding what the cloud offering was, it was not really a true cloud PMS but rather Opera V5 hosted in an Oracle Data Centre.
This must not be confused with Opera Cloud PMS which is the new PMS System by Oracle Hospitality.
With cloud products we have come to expect the possibility to connect and interface via Web Services of API’s. API’s allow hoteliers to integrate multiple management and booking solutions which in turn opens possibilities to automate processes to streamline operations, enable integration and support sales processes with faster and easier booking processes. An example for this are POS Interfaces, the Simphony POS to Opera interface features an amazing 32 touch points between F&B and Hotel Management data.
This evolution has of course not come without any difficulties, the acquisition of Micros Inc by Oracle was a historic milestone in the Hospitality Industry which came with high expectations. The process of securing the Opera and Micros platforms according to Oracle standards and enable the move too the clouds took years which caused an insecure environment and cast a shadow on the Oracle Hospitality product suite. During this time many hoteliers and restaurateurs decided to move to alternative solutions as the outlook for a better Hospitality Platform had faded.
As Oracle consultants, Mastel hospitality is well aware of the many difficulties our customers have faced during this period, but it is important not to lose focus now.
The future of Oracle & Opera PMS
The value of Oracle and the solutions that are to come are a direct result of 40 years in the Hotel Management industry combined with the technology and strength that one of the largest technology companies in the world brings to the table.
We are all aware that Oracle is not Micros Inc. (also known as Micros Fidelio), but the evolution they propose, the support of the partners and the new perspective of the products that are coming make us anticipate that hoteliers will soon have a new work and collaboration environment that will allow them to grow again and rely on those solutions.
It will not be a simple transition. The market has already experience the birth of Opera in the Hospitality sector, the change in the type of Oracle-Client relationship through a new worldwide network of Partners, as well as the commercialization of the new solution of Opera Cloud through these Partners , will over time gain customers trust again.
Therefore, it is not time to rush into great changes. It is time to be patient to optimize the solution that are currently at their disposal. The future is promising, the new solutions look very good and although we expect a period of adaptation to the market, we are sure it will be shorter because Opera Cloud has been constantly evolving and improving for years. We are already at the end of the transition and at the begin of a new future, lets take it together one step at a time.
Want to find out more about Opera PMS and Oracle Hospitality, feel free to contact us, and a member our team will be in touch.
