Maybe Microsoft just misses running Expedia

Extremely light on the blogging front recently as we're preparing for the Travolution Summit and Awards next week.

So, alas, we've not been able to follow-up on our Farecast story from earlier in the week with any sensible analysis.

Anyway, it turns out that rumours suggesting Expedia was the buyer were a bit wide of the mark and Microsoft is new proud owner of Farecast. Maybe someone mentioned it at an Expedia-Microsoft alumni party?

How about this for an understated announcement on the Farecast Blog:

We’re excited to confirm that Farecast has been acquired by Microsoft! This acquisition creates tremendous opportunities for the Farecast team and our customers. We look forward to sharing more details in the weeks to come. On behalf of the Farecast team, thank you.

Perhaps rather sensibly, comments were not activated on the post.

The deal has, predictably, got the Silicon Valley types foaming/frothing at the mouth, with some earlier in the week excited enough to say any deal should be seen in the context of a Google-Expedia deal.

Our prediction on that: get over it. Always happy to proven wrong, of course.

The best coverage we've seen is on the Motley Fool, which suggests Farecast's fantastic prediction technology should be used by Microsoft to work out when it should bid more for Yahoo!.

Maybe Microsoft has simply just given up on Yahoo! and sees Farecast as the next best thing. Oops...

For some serious analysis of the Farecast deal, Musings typically has the best. Over to you, Mr Bainbridge.

Yen Lee on the UpTake Blog has some more.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: expedia farecast microsoft google