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London, U.K., September 23, 2014 – Commerce Guys, creators of Drupal Commerce and Platform.sh, is proud to announce that German long distance bus operator FlixBus has launched its new eCommerce site www.FlixBus.de on Platform.sh Enterprise, the powerful continuous delivery cloud for digital business. Platform Enterprise speeds and simplifies site development, deployment and operation for digital agencies, systems integrators, development shops and, of course, online merchants. Along with Drupal, Symfony, and other PHP-based applications, it can support a range of other Linux-based services.
FlixBus is one of Germany’s largest long-distance bus services, and among the top 10 travel industry ticketing sites in Europe. Their move to Platform.sh Enterprise coincides with their adoption of Drupal, making FlixBus the most recent in a long list of international travel companies to implement the popular Open Source CMS. Having chosen Drupal, Platform Enterprise was quickly identified as the ideal hosting scenario, with its combination of optimized development and ultra-high resiliency at commodity costs.
The FlixBus team has developed a powerful IT infrastructure to manage hundreds of thousands of ticket requests per day. To do so, FlixBus relies on strong partners like Commerce Guys to provide cutting-edge services to host and develop fast and reliable IT services. And while technical excellence is a must, lowering IT costs is essential, ensuring that FlixBus can continue to provide affordable bus tickets to its customers. As a disruptive, innovative player offering high-quality and low-cost, FlixBus does for long-distance travel what Platform.sh does for Cloud hosting.
Platform.sh is offered in two different versions, both of which enjoy the same the development workflow optimization:
- Platform.sh: Organizations with small- to medium-sized workload requirements will benefit from this self-serve, container-based server-grid-architecture.
- Platform.sh Enterprise: is the premium offer for mission-critical applications requiring much higher availability and triple redundancy. Platform.sh Enterprise guarantees that sites will stay online and perform well, regardless of any physical or logical failures within the infrastructure.
Both versions offer multiple server locations around the world, along with vertical and horizontal scaling that is seamless and without interruption.
Platform.sh provides highly optimized development workflows and automation, and is widely regarded as the next generation in today’s Platform as a Service (PaaS) market. Its flexible architecture and easy-to-use interface eliminate complex administration processes. Platform.sh enables Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) during development, during launch, and throughout an application’s lifecycle. Snapshot technology enables ‘cloning at the speed of thought’, replicating full-stack environments on-demand in seconds and radically improving production return-to-operations (RTO) metrics. Up to 25% savings in developer and systems administration efforts are being achieved on projects; the return on investment (ROI) being exponentially greater the bigger and more complex the site build.
"Both FlixBus and our delivery partner Wunderkraut have gained significant financial advantage from the optimized development workflow functionality provided by Platform.sh, and we are confident that it will be able to easily manage unexpected capacity demands, along with the deployment of new website features at short notice to take advantage of changes in our marketplace.” Daniel Krauss, CTO FlixBus.
“We are very pleased to support FlixBus in their adoption of Platform.sh, and expect this commerce-tuned platform to service their fast-growing customer base with sub-second response times for many years to come.” Kieron Sambrook-Smith, General Manager EMEA, Commerce Guys.
About FlixBus
FlixBus is a German low-cost long-distance bus service founded in 2011 that has been connecting large cities and medium-sized towns in Germany, and several neighboring countries through an all-encompassing network since the fall of the monopoly of Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) in 2013.
With approximately 2,500 bus connections to around 150 destinations in Germany and neighboring countries, FlixBus offers sustainable, comfortable and affordable mobility. Tickets can be purchased online at www.FlixBus.de, via the free smartphone app, from a constantly growing amount of distribution sales partners as well as (recently) in local FlixBus shops. The tickets are directly validated by the QR code when checking in before departure. The ticket price includes internet access via Wi-Fi and a guaranteed seat on the air-conditioned bus. All the latest travel information and updates and delays can be found on the FlixBus app, via text message or at www.FlixBus.de/Streckeninfos.
FlixBus currently has a team of around 150 at the FlixBus headquarters in Munich, as well as a partner network of approximately 60 of the most powerful bus companies in Germany and Austria.
Under the aegis of the FlixBus umbrella brand, FlixBus runs ticketing and sales via the platform www.FlixBus.de, along with customer service and support for bricks-and-mortar distribution partners. Medium-sized bus partners are responsible for the operative business and the procurement of a modern fleet of comfortable buses. In this manner, a consistent, Europe-wide mobility offering with unbeatable price, quality and service has been created. The traveler profits too, from a modern, comfortable and affordable alternative to train and air travel. FlixBus was awarded with the Bayerischer Gründerpreis 2014 (The Bavarian’s Founder’s Prize) for Best Startup in 2014, along with and other awards.
FlixBus managed to quickly establish itself in the travel sector thanks to fast expansion of its network and continuous optimization of its offering. With an attractive network, high customer approval and innovative multichannel distribution, FlixBus disrupts the status quo and competes against even major corporations. Because of its “excellent price-performance ratio”, travel comfort, transparent booking procedures and fare information, FlixBus was rated as Germany’s winner in field testing of long-distance buses by Stiftung Warentest (test occured 07/2014).
About Commerce Guys
Commerce Guys is the creator of Drupal Commerce, one of the world’s fastest growing eCommerce solutions with tens of thousands of active sites worldwide. Drupal Commerce is revolutionary software that integrates commerce, content and community to create engaging Web experiences that bring e-retailers more traffic to drive more results. Commerce Guys most recently launched Platform.sh, the Continuous Delivery Cloud for web development and hosting.
Commerce Guys won the overall grand prize and the gold prize in the Technology category at the E-commerce Awards 2013. The company was also awarded the gold prize for Best New Electronic Software Solution at the 2013 American Business Awards, also known as The Stevies.
Visit us at CommerceGuys.com
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