Google acquires ITA Software • Hacker News Board

Re: Google acquires ITA Software

#51

Post by hristov » Fri, Apr 08, 2011, 9:57 PM UTC

This is a good opportunity for someone to start a competitor of ITA. Google are only required to serve the ITA clients for five years. They will probably stop afterwards, they will want people to use their search engine to find flights.

The only thing special about ITA is their excellent software. Apparently they get their raw data from another company that is willing to license the data to anyone. I am sure that there are still some old LISPers around that can write a similar software for a new company.

Re: Google acquires ITA Software

#52

Post by MichaelSalib » Fri, Apr 08, 2011, 10:06 PM UTC

hristov wrote: post #51

This is a good opportunity for someone to start a competitor of ITA. Google are only required to serve the ITA clients for five years. They will probably stop afterwards, they will want people to use their search engine to find flights. The only thing special about ITA is their excellent software. Apparently they get their raw data from another company that is willing to license the data to anyone. I am sure that the…

Apparently they get their raw data from another company that is willing to license the data to anyone.

This is not true. In order to do what ITA does, you need schedules, fares, and availability data. You can buy the first two from clearinghouses if you have enough money. But the only way to get availability data is to either contract with airlines directly OR contract with your competitors.

I am sure that there are still some old LISPers around that can write a similar software for a new company.

That is just breathtakingly wrong.

Re: Google acquires ITA Software

#53

Post by hristov » Fri, Apr 08, 2011, 10:45 PM UTC

MichaelSalib wrote: post #52

hristov wrote: post #51

This is a good opportunity for someone to start a competitor of ITA. Google are only required to serve the ITA clients for five years. They will probably stop afterwards, they will want people to use their search engine to find flights. The only thing special about ITA is their excellent software. Apparently they get their raw data from another company that is willing to license the data to anyone. I am sure that the…

Apparently they get their raw data from another company that is willing to license the data to anyone. This is not true. In order to do what ITA does, you need schedules, fares, and availability data. You can buy the first two from clearinghouses if you have enough money. But the only way to get availability data is to either contract with airlines directly OR contract with your competitors. I am sure that there are…

Breathtakingly wrong? Are you saying there aren't any old lispers left? Or that old lipers cannot write similar software?

Before you say something is breathtakingly wrong you should read it carefully and try to understand it. This way you might also get some of the jokes that are currently flying over your head.

Re: Google acquires ITA Software

#54

Post by calbear81 » Fri, Apr 08, 2011, 10:59 PM UTC

hristov wrote: post #51

This is a good opportunity for someone to start a competitor of ITA. Google are only required to serve the ITA clients for five years. They will probably stop afterwards, they will want people to use their search engine to find flights. The only thing special about ITA is their excellent software. Apparently they get their raw data from another company that is willing to license the data to anyone. I am sure that the…

It would be good to read up on ATPCO. Basically, ITA sucks up the ATPCO feed as well as any direct connects with airlines worldwide and then processes that data into usable feeds for clients. In many cases, the trouble/expense of handling the ATPCO data is not worth it to sites so they pay ITA to provide them with a feed that meets their responsiveness/API/uptime/accuracy requirements.

Re: Google acquires ITA Software

#55

Post by MichaelSalib » Fri, Apr 08, 2011, 10:59 PM UTC

hristov wrote: post #53

MichaelSalib wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently they get their raw data from another company that is willing to license the data to anyone. This is not true. In order to do what ITA does, you need schedules, fares, and availability data. You can buy the first two from clearinghouses if you have enough money. But the only way to get availability data is to either contract with airlines directly OR contract with your competitors. I am sure that there are…

Breathtakingly wrong? Are you saying there aren't any old lispers left? Or that old lipers cannot write similar software? Before you say something is breathtakingly wrong you should read it carefully and try to understand it. This way you might also get some of the jokes that are currently flying over your head.

There are plenty of lispers left. I'm one of them. I also used to work at ITA.

The bit that is breathtakingly wrong is the notion that you can just take some smart lisper, lock them in a room, and have them replicate what ITA did and have that be a viable business. See martincmartin's and my comments later in this thread to learn why that would be incredibly hard. With a smart enough team and enough time and money, you could certainly do it, but this is a project that would take many years and its unlikely anyone would be able to keep funding for that long. ITA had a much easier job: it was competing with very poorly designed systems that ran on mainframes and had very little CPU power available.

Re: Google acquires ITA Software

#56

Post by ig1 » Fri, Apr 08, 2011, 11:20 PM UTC

dartland wrote: post #46

satishmreddy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Herez my post on why google needed to buy ITA. http://bit.ly/h07ked

While your thesis may be correct, some of your assumptions are a bit off: 1) Bing has stopped investing in travel tech, they now use Kayak for search. So do we still believe in the value prop? 2) Farecast (fare predictor) turns out to be not very valuable. So much so, that Bing couldn't even sustain development of their own search tool. Can Google do a better job of it? Maybe. Can they do a good enough job of if that…

Microsoft butchered Farecast, it never really had a chance there.

Re: Google acquires ITA Software

#57

Post by martincmartin » Fri, Apr 08, 2011, 11:32 PM UTC

By the way, Paul Graham was an early fan of ITA software, mentioning them in "Great Hackers"

http://paulgraham.com/gh.html

And even has an interview with ITA's original programming genius, Carl de Marken

http://paulgraham.com/carl.html

Re: Google acquires ITA Software

#58

Post by gruseom » Sat, Apr 09, 2011, 12:21 AM UTC

MichaelSalib wrote: post #55

hristov wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breathtakingly wrong? Are you saying there aren't any old lispers left? Or that old lipers cannot write similar software? Before you say something is breathtakingly wrong you should read it carefully and try to understand it. This way you might also get some of the jokes that are currently flying over your head.

There are plenty of lispers left. I'm one of them. I also used to work at ITA. The bit that is breathtakingly wrong is the notion that you can just take some smart lisper, lock them in a room, and have them replicate what ITA did and have that be a viable business. See martincmartin's and my comments later in this thread to learn why that would be incredibly hard. With a smart enough team and enough time and money, y…

Given what you and martincmartin are saying, I am left wondering why Google was able to buy ITA for so little. How can such a thing be worth less than a billion dollars?

Re: Google acquires ITA Software

#59

Post by thaumaturgy » Sat, Apr 09, 2011, 12:37 AM UTC

hristov wrote: post #50

maayank wrote: post #18

How cool would it be if you could type "flights to somewhere sunny for under $500 in May" How cool would it be to receive suggestions for flights in May with clusters in my social graph as destinations?

Right because before I had to keep random acquaintances as friends and read their updates in order not to hurt their feelings, now I have to fly to random places in order not to hurt peoples feelings. Can't wait.

I had a business acquaintance get her feelings hurt because I didn't follow her back when she followed me on Twitter. I looked at her feed and she literally had tweeted about her breakfast that morning.

I quit Twitter instead so that I wouldn't have to hurt anyone's feelings anymore.

Re: Google acquires ITA Software

#60

Post by MichaelSalib » Sat, Apr 09, 2011, 12:44 AM UTC

gruseom wrote: post #58

MichaelSalib wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of lispers left. I'm one of them. I also used to work at ITA. The bit that is breathtakingly wrong is the notion that you can just take some smart lisper, lock them in a room, and have them replicate what ITA did and have that be a viable business. See martincmartin's and my comments later in this thread to learn why that would be incredibly hard. With a smart enough team and enough time and money, y…

Given what you and martincmartin are saying, I am left wondering why Google was able to buy ITA for so little. How can such a thing be worth less than a billion dollars?

Because there's a rather finite amount of money spent on air travel which means that the valuation of any one company in that sector will be well within Google's means?