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Google Acquires ITA Software, Regulators May Balk

Posted by Soulskill on from the put-me-in-coach dept.

marino02 tips news that Google has acquired ITA Software, a company who sells travel-related software and information, for $700 million. "Google said it plans to use ITA's technology in its Web search tools and to allow potential passengers to shop for tickets right from Google. Travel search makes up a huge portion of Google searches, but it's a complicated type of search to express in a query box, [said Marissa Mayer]." Analysts expect the deal to come under scrutiny from the FTC. "With this deal, Google will have transformed itself into one of the biggest power brokers in the travel industry. It will control the leading software for powering online airline reservations. It will be able to provide something in its own search results above and beyond what its competitors — who merely license the ITA software — will be able to produce. And it will become the leading online advertising buy for travel-related advertisers (assuming it wasn't already) if it doesn't butcher the rollout of user-friendly airline search tools within Google's already popular interface."

15 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Why travel? by ArsonSmith · · Score: 5, Funny

    With google earth and street view I don't actually need to leave the basement any more.

    --
    Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
  2. One of ITA's Customers is Bing by longacre · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hey, Bing, sorry that latest software update caused all your flights to be listed as "Oceanic 815." We'll roll out a fix for that in the next 4-6 months.

    --
    Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
    1. Re:One of ITA's Customers is Bing by mandelbr0t · · Score: 3, Interesting

      In all fairness, these are the unwritten rules that the IT market plays by. However, if Google were to start playing these games, it would definitely go against their "Don't be evil" motto. A little regulation would probably go a long way in forcing big business to be reasonable in their competitive practice.

      --
      "Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
  3. Google Maps by Thelasko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm anticipating the next time I use Google Maps to have the options of traveling by car, bike, walking, public transit, and by air.

    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
    1. Re:Google Maps by WarJolt · · Score: 3, Funny

      I just hope they keep the option to "Swim Across the Atlantic Ocean". My commute isn't complete until I swim 3462 miles.

  4. But you'll still only be able to find southwest... by ducomputergeek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    at southwest.com.

    I find it amusing that 15 years ago people laughed because all they gave you was a bag of free bag of peanuts and a soda. Today they are a luxury because they don't charge you for bags and still give you a free bag of peanuts and a free soda.

    And they are the only airline I fly domestically these days.

    --
    "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
  5. But corporate travel... by Animats · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Google has no plans to sell airline tickets to consumers", they say. However, Google Corporate Travel could be a big moneymaker. Companies will pay for outsourcing services to handle and account for their employee travel.

  6. Re:But you'll still only be able to find southwest by h4rr4r · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Too bad they don't offer international flights. Heck, I wish we would let international carriers offer domestic flights. Lufthansa is no wonder carrier but the service made any US carrier look like Hobo-Air.

  7. Try it out by feenberg · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can use the ITA engine at http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch and it is really quite good compared to most airline/agency websites. However, it won't actually sell you a ticket.

    1. Re:Try it out by tjhayes · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's significantly better than "really quite good". It is EXCELLENT. It's very quick, and the searches it executes can be VERY customizable. Let's say you wanted to fly from NYC to LAX, only on United, with exactly 1 stop, and that stop MUST be in Chicago. ITA can perform that exact search for you. It's really quite amazing how well it works.

  8. Thank god for that by JohnnyUK · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm glad. Airline websites have had forever to get this right and yet, for me, one of the most frustrating things to do on the internet is find a flight in any sensible fashion.

  9. Lisp by White+Flame · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ITA's core technology is written in Lisp. It's nice to see more real-world success stories like this, and that using a less popular language for the core IP doesn't prevent sale of a software company.

  10. ITA? Never heard of it by CaptainOfSpray · · Score: 3, Interesting

    >It will control the leading software for powering online airline reservations

    Anybody ever heard of Galileo? Amadeus anyone?


    Is this ITA something that is only used in the US? BTW, whatever happened to SABRE?

    --
    "Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
    1. Re:ITA? Never heard of it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ITA is to Sabre as Google is to index cards.

      One of the founders of ITA examined the rules published by the central authority through which all airlines publish their flight availability data. The ITA founder proved those rules make problems that are NP-complete. He used ITA's search engine to implement a Turing machine using only the rules as defined by the central authority. He used that Turing machine to perform other calculations, all centered around proving certain properties of the data structures defined by the rules. There is a deep art around what ITA does. Sabre was built years ago before anyone suspected that the base of data being searched was anywhere close to as complex as ITA proved it to be. Once ITA understood the true nature of the problem they were trying to solve, they built an engine optimized to search the space. The difference between ITA's results and Sabre's results are .. like Google compared to someone searching index cards.

      ITA is the search engine behind Orbitz, Kayak (I believe and am not going to double check), and several other top search engines. ITA doesn't sell tickets, ITA provides data to people who sell tickets.

    2. Re:ITA? Never heard of it by bunyip · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think ITA made a great deal of hype around their NP proof, but the complexity of the search was known by many and was known before ITA published their results. For example, Tom Holloran (United Airlines) published a paper at AGIFORS in the 1980's that showed the equivalence to a set covering / set partitioning problem.

      Sabre's fare search engine was rewritten from scratch in C++ & Java starting about the same time ITA started. The search engine runs on a Linux cluster, and independent benchmarks show that it is the leader in finding the lowest fares. In fact, pretty much *all* the major players in fare search run on x86 clusters. You could look this up online too :-)