Almost 12 months to the day, Google finally announced what many had been anticipating for years: the search giant was getting into travel in a major way.
For all the proclamations in the years beforehand (hands up who heard an executive claim that the company had no designs on entering the travel industry?), Google decided it would pay $700 million to get its hands on the well-respected air shopping and pricing engine ITA Software.
Nine months later, with a Department of Justice review giving the deal the thumbs-up (with conditions), Google has officially been able to spend the past few months working out what it is going to do with its prized asset.
Read full story at: http://www.tnooz.com/2011/07/06/news/the-700m-question-how-will-google-take-travel-search-global/