Comment by kavrick

I am not surprised by a single thing in this article. My parents local rental car company was purchased by Hertz 20 years ago and I got to see first hand the IT mess they brought to the acquisition.

Funny enough, when Hertz brought DTAG (Dollar / Thrifty) they might have purchased part ownership of a software Company called BlueBird Systems which developed a modern front end system built on Progress, which was light years ahead of Hertz internal nonsense at the time according to people I spoke with.

The car rental software world was a weird and wonderful place. They even had their own operating systems called SuperDos once upon a time specifically built to run dumb terminals throught multi-mux's over phone lines. When Enterprise innovated and used satellites to connect their locations together, the industry thought they were mad. Turns out their ability to do real time yeild management of their fleets was a game changer and enabled them to grow at an astounding pace and unseated Hertz very quickly.

The entire industry is filled with crazy consolidation, public / private takeovers and companies thinking their way is the better way to do it. Astounding levels of tech debt, hubris, money and larger than life personalities. A near perfect ecosystem for consultant grift.