www.investment-on.com INVESTMENT MAGAZINE - Google buys software for $ 700 million
Google Inc plans to shop for one of the maximumWeb's key providers of airline travel software for $700 million, potentially raising new antitrust concerns for the arena's largest websearch engine.
Google Inc plans to shop for one of the maximumWeb's key providers of airline travel software for $700 million, potentially raising new antitrust concerns for the arena's largest websearch engine.
Google said on Thursday that it had agreed to shop for personally-owned ITA Software, in a move that Google said would permitit to decoratethe best way consumers locatefgentleand muche dataonline.
"What we are going to do is build new fgentlesearch tools that target end-users," Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said in a conference call with analysts and members of the clicking on Thursday.
He said that Google had no plans to sell airline tickets to consumers and that Google planned to honor all existing agreements that ITA has with its partners.
The deal should permitGoogle to compare innovations made by MicrocushyCorp, whose recently re-launched Bing search engine has gained percentageby that specialize in a handful of expresssearch categories like travel and shopping.
The deal, which was reported to be within the works for weeks, has unnerved travel induscheck outplayers worried that Google mayfinally end up wielding an excessive amount of influence within the sector.
ITA, which has roughly 500 employees, provides software that organizes fgentledatalike fares and fgentletimes. the corporate is a huge source of details a fewirfares to the aviation industry, utilized by airlines, travel agents and other sites including AMR Corp's American Airlines, Continental Airlines ,Tory Burch Flats Leopard 000, Hotwire, Kayak,Tory Burch Wedges Chocolate 01V, Orbitz and Microsoft's Bing.
Google beat out reported bidders Expedia, Kayak.com and Travelport.
On a conference call on Thursday, Google executives known asthe deal "pro-competitive" and "pro-consumer" but said it expects that U.S. regulators will inspectthe deal's implications closely.
"i mayexpect that it will be an indicationificant review," said Schmidt. He declined to estimate when the deal would close.
The ITA deal comes shortly after Google closed its $750 million acquisition of mobile advertising firm AdMob. That deal was held up for several months by regulators, but ultimately approved when the Federal industryCommission concluded pple Inc's nascent mobile ad business would staythe market competitive.
Antitrust lawyers said they expected the Google-ITA deal to be scrutinized by regulators, but ultimately approved.
"i could be surprised if this transaction were blocked," said attorney Richard Brosnick,Tory Burch Flats Gold 004, an antitrust professionalwith Butzel Long.
He said thon the argument against the deal isn't that it maymake Google dominant within the field, but that Google mayuse itschronic to damageother online travel companies like Expedia and Orbitz.
Brosnick said he expected the federal government to enforce sureconditions before approving the deal, this type ofs requiring that Google/ITA continue to take care of Orbitz and others on even terms.
Google executives said on Friday that it was too sodirectly to mention exactly how the corporate would containITA into its search service, or the way it would earn cash from ITA's fgentleinformation.
Caris & Company analyst Sandeep Aggarwal said that travel-related searches currently accounted for 10 to twelve %of Google's revenue, which totaled almaximum$24 billion in 2009.
But he said that Microsoft's advances in its online travel search service, including its 2008 acquisition of the FareCast travel dataservice,Tory Burch Flats Snake Beige 00L, had forced Google to reinforce its own travel capabilities.
"Google's basiccompetitor has been successful by penetrating one of the maximumverticals, and travel is among them," said Aggarwal.
"This Google ITA deal is motivated by either one offensive and defensive reasons," he said.
Google shares, which slid 1.2 %on Thursday to $439.4ninein a weak market, were unchanged in after-hours industryat $439.49.
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