ITA Software is a travel industry

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

division of

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

, formerly an independent company, in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

. The company was founded by Jeremy Wertheimer, a computer scientist from the

MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

and

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

, with his partner Richard Aiken in 1996. On July 1, 2010, ITA agreed to be acquired by Google. On April 8, 2011, the

US Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

approved the buyout. As part of the agreement, Google was required to license ITA software to other websites for five years.

History

ITA's first product was an airfare search and pricing system called QPX. This system has been and is used by travel companies such as Bing Travel,

CheapTickets CheapTickets is an online Travel agency, travel services company focusing on the leisure market, offering airline tickets, hotel and vacation rentals, rental cars, customized vacation packages, and cruise ship, cruises. CheapTickets was a wholly ow ...

Kayak.com Kayak (styled as KAYAK) is an American online travel agency and metasearch engine owned and operated by Booking Holdings. Kayak's website and mobile apps are currently available in over 18 languages and more than 30 countries, including the Un ...

, and

Orbitz Orbitz.com is a travel fare aggregator website and travel metasearch engine. The website is owned by Orbitz Worldwide, Inc., a subsidiary of Expedia Group. It is headquartered in the Citigroup Center, Chicago, Illinois. Background Origina ...

, and by

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines for ...

s such as

Alitalia Alitalia - Società Aerea Italiana Società per azioni, S.p.A., operating as Alitalia (), was an Italian airline which was once the flag carrier and largest airline of Italy. The company had its head office in Fiumicino, Metropolitan City of ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

, ANA,

Cape Air Hyannis Air Service Inc., operating as Cape Air, is an airline headquartered at Barnstable Municipal Airport in Hyannis, Massachusetts, United States. It operates scheduled passenger services in the Northeast, the Caribbean, Midwest, and Eas ...

Delta Air Lines Delta Air Lines, Inc., typically referred to as Delta, is one of the major airlines of the United States and a legacy carrier. One of the List of airlines by foundation date, world's oldest airlines in operation, Delta is headquartered in Atla ...

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.

US Airways US Airways (formerly USAir) was a major United States airline that operated from 1937 until its merger with American Airlines in 2015. It was originally founded in History of aviation in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh as a mail delivery airline called ...

, and

Virgin Atlantic Virgin Atlantic, a trading name of Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited and Virgin Atlantic International Limited, is a British airline with its head office in Crawley, England. The airline was established in 1984 as British Atlantic Airways, and w ...

. ITA also hosts its own airfare search website based on QPX, called "Matrix", although it is not possible to buy tickets from it. ITA was known for using programming puzzles to attract and evaluate potential employees since 2001. Some of these puzzles have appeared in ads on Boston's

MBTA The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (abbreviated MBTA and known colloquially as "the T") is the public agency responsible for operating most public transportation services in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. The MBTA transit network in ...

subway system. ITA is also one of the highest-profile companies to base their software on

Common Lisp Common Lisp (CL) is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, published in ANSI standard document ''ANSI INCITS 226-1994 (S20018)'' (formerly ''X3.226-1994 (R1999)''). The Common Lisp HyperSpec, a hyperlinked HTML version, has been derived fro ...

. In January 2006, ITA received $100 million in

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

money from a syndicate of five investment firms led by

Battery Ventures Battery Ventures is an American technology-focused investment firm. Founded in 1983, the firm makes venture-capital and private-equity investments in markets across the globe from offices in Boston, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Israel and Lon ...

, marking the largest investment in a software firm in New England in five years. In September 2006, ITA announced a several million dollar deal with

Air Canada Air Canada is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Canada by the size and passengers carried. Air Canada maintains its headquarters in the borough of Saint-Laurent, Montreal, Quebec. The airline, founded in 1937, provides scheduled and ...

to develop a new

computer reservations system Computer reservation systems, or central reservation systems (CRS), are computerized systems used to store and retrieve information and conduct transactions related to air travel, hotels, car rental, or other activities. Originally designed and oper ...

to power its reservations, inventory control, seat availability, check-in, and airport operations. In August 2009, Air Canada announced that the project had been suspended. In July 2010,

announced the acquisition of ITA for $700 million in cash, subject to DOJ review and approval. On April 8, 2011, the US Dept. of Justice and Google reached an agreement in terms to allow the purchase and dismiss a potential

antitrust law Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust ...

suit. On March 1, 2012,

and

announced that Cape Air had migrated to ITA Software's

passenger service system A passenger service system (PSS) is a series of critical systems used by airlines. The PSS usually comprises an airline reservations system, an airline inventory system and a departure control system (DCS). Modules Generally the PSS is made u ...

(PSS). One year later, Google announced that it was discontinuing the PSS. In 2013, Google started offering a simplified API to QPX called QPX Express; it was discontinued on April 10, 2018.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ita Software 1996 establishments in Massachusetts Software companies based in Massachusetts Travel and holiday companies of the United States Airline tickets Business software companies Travel technology Common Lisp (programming language) software Companies based in Cambridge, Massachusetts Google acquisitions American companies established in 1996 Hospitality companies established in 1996 Software companies established in 1996 2011 mergers and acquisitions Software companies of the United States

History

See also

References

External links