Press Release

Innovation and excellence rewarded with double iAward win for ThoughtWorks and clients

29 May 2009 - Melbourne, Australia: 28 May 2009 - ThoughtWorks Australia, in conjunction with its clients Lonely Planet and InfoXchange, won two National Awards at the IT industry's prestigious iAwards event held last night at Melbourne's Crown Casino.

ThoughtWorks and Lonely Planet were ranked #1 in the Tourism and Hospitality category, and pro bono work with InfoXchange on Wired@Collingwood - Australia's largest digital inclusion project - won ThoughtWorks, InfoXChange and Victorian Government Neighborhood Renewal the Community iAward for corporate social responsibility.

The annual iAwards, held by peak industry body the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), recognise the most outstanding information and communications technology innovators in Australia. Judging criteria for the iAwards include uniqueness and trendsetting, market share potential, transparency and impact on quality of life.

Last year ThoughtWorks Australia and BT Financial Group (a wholly owned subsidiary of Westpac Bank) jointly won the iAward for best financial application for BT's Super for Life application. BT's Super for Life product made an immediate impact in the Australian market, receiving the Super Ratings Fund of the Year award for Best New Product within two weeks of its launch and Rainmaker's Best Website of the Year - Superannuation.

ThoughtWorks Australia Managing Director, Chris Murphy, said that the awards received by ThoughtWorks and its clients were "a strong and clear demonstration of the important role to be played by the ICT industry in driving business model innovation and reaching new business channels and communities. ThoughtWorks is pleased to be recognised as playing a key role in helping our clients drive and implement business innovation, and in doing so, continuing to set a new competitive standard for the rest of the industry".

In the category for Tourism and Hospitality, Lonely Planet online represented a comprehensive re-launch of the company's web presence to meet their customer's needs for improved social networking, travel information and trip planning.. More than just a "print to web" story, the new Lonely Planet business model strategy is to become a digital media company, creating new revenue streams and channels through the re-use and re-purposing of its rich legacy of travel information and knowledge assets. Lonely Planet's new online site was delivered thanks to a collaboration between the Lonely Planet, BBC Worldwide and ThoughtWorks teams based in Melbourne. The resulting online delivery team is viewed as one of the top-performing agile development groups in Australia and the iAward is the latest in a string of accolades for the new online site.

As Nigel Dalton, General Manager of IT at Lonely Planet explains, this project has transformed the IT capability for the organisation - in both operations and software development:
"Lonely Planet's new online site has delivered three main results - a major new website with millions of pages, rich in book content, images and video; a social networking platform to enhance one of the world's largest online travel communities; and an open architecture to grow an ecosystem of software developers leveraging Lonely Planet's unique content, with travellers contributing their views alongside authors and editors."

"Our goal to increase US and European traffic has been met - with US traffic (unique visitors) up an average of 20% and the UK up 30% since re-launch, plus we are seeing over 35 million page views per month in challenging times for the travel industry globally" explains Dalton.

Executive Director of InfoXchange Australia, Andrew Mahar, commented after winning the special Community iAward, "Having genuinely affordable internet access for all, especially the socially and economically disadvantaged in the 21st century, is a fundamental infrastructure requirement of any civil and democratic society; espousing equal opportunity, equality and a fair go. Recognition by the AIIA, and the partnership with forward thinking businesses like ThoughWorks have greatly assisted InfoXchange with its work and provided opportunity for over 2000 people to participate in the digital world." ThoughtWorks has previously been recognised for its work for InfoXchange by winning the "Big Heart" award from Australia Cares.

About ThoughtWorks:

ThoughtWorks Australia is part of a transnational IT professional services firm providing application development and systems integration services to Global 1000 companies. The company's leadership in the practical application of Agile methods in enterprise software allows its people to deliver higher quality solutions more quickly and cost effectively, while giving client business leaders greater program and project control. ThoughtWorks' Web site is [www.thoughtworks.com].

Contact Details:
Chris Murphy
Managing Director
ThoughtWorks Australia
1-300-723-823