EN: We're migrating various legacy systems to IP'a migration that's well underway. The airline industry has an abundance of legacy comms, and Cathay is one of the world's most advanced in terms of conversion'we've been doing it for over three years now.

But difficult areas remain. There are many providers of managed IP comms, but there are also important operational messages for airlines, and the Internet is not a 100 percent reliable communication medium. What we need for certain types of comms is guaranteed delivery within a guaranteed timeframe.

Another project is an ongoing SOA (service-oriented architecture) implementation. The motivation for SOA is: we have a lot of interfaces between our systems, and to put them on a modern technical footing would be sensible. This is a long-term project.

CWHK: Can you tell us about your overall IT structure?

EN: I break it down into two categories. One is basic IT department work: infrastructure and network. It needs to run reliably, and cost-effectively'it's basically a commodity service. The second category is the value-added stuff: the applications, the functionality, and the use of IT for business, which can get very sophisticated and which we view as a partnership relationship with the business side.