Travel website Priceline has purchased Kayak.com for $40 per share, it was announced today. The deal amounts to about $1.8 billion, with the Priceline Group paying about $500 million of that in cash and the rest coming in equity and assumed stock options. The deal is expected to close during the first quarter of 2013.
Google this afternoon said it had bought airline data firm ITA for $700 million. Vice president of search Marissa Mayer billed the move as one to increase competition in searching for air travel info and said the company would use the buyout to develop flight search tools. Both companies have approved the deal but are waiting on government approval.
Qualcomm on Wednesday announced the Kayak PC alternative, designed to give users in emerging markets widespread and affordable access to high-speed wireless Internet. The Kayak PC alternative uses 3G wireless broadband to supply Internet access to markets in which wired Internet access is unaffordable or otherwise not available. Comprised of a reference design and a set of software specifications that can be made available to hardware builders, the Kayak PC alternative can be categorized in-between a desktop PC and portable, Internet-capable wireless devices.
