ITA Software about to be absorbed into Google Inc?

[thewinchester]

From Reuters, via Mashable:

Google Inc is in talks to acquire airline IT and services provider ITA Software Inc, Bloomberg reported citing three people familiar with the matter.

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based ITA Software may seek about $1 billion, two of the people told the news agency, adding that the talks may not lead to a transaction.


With tools that help users find flight information online, ITA Software may help Google compete with travel search features offered by Microsoft Corp, the news agency said.

There's obvious speculation about why Google could be pursuing this acquisition, to enhance their data and information portfolio, and use potential synergies to derive additional revenue from flight booking & information.

It would however be a shame if Google was going to take away what I and others find a very valuable tool.

 

[samh004]

If they could better integrate flight search into their search engine, that’d be pretty cool. but I can’t say I recognise exactly what that company specialises in. Maybe someone can enlighten me

 

[anat0l]

Something tells me this may not be such a good idea....

...but what to do? If you were ITA and you were offered a sum of money too good to refuse, why would you pass it up (unless you had a lot of care about your product)?

 

[albatross710]

GOOG makes many many acquisitions in a year. Sometimes

for the target company customers,
for their technology,
for particular staff,
for saving the time it takes to bring staff groups together, and
just so someone else doesn't acquire it.

I'm sure they have other reasons for acquisitions as well.

Trying to work out why they want something isn't always straight forward.