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ITA Software is known for its airfare search and pricing system QPX, which is used by many U.S. and international airlines.
The benefits for such an acquisition for Google are obvious: travel search. Microsoft's Bing, which trails behind Google on many fronts, is actually doing quite well in this area. Hop on to Bing Travel, and you can find and book flights and hotels directly from there. If Google's deal with ITA Software goes through, we can expect a similar offering from Google soon.