Redmond, Washington — Software monopolist Microsoft in its battle with arch rival Google to present a better travel search, over the weekend announced its partnership with online travel search firm Kayak.com to bring flight search results to its web browser Bing.
Bing often forges association with other companies or tweaks its services to help improve certain areas of its search results. Just last week Microsoft unveiled some new features for their travel search with the addition of autosuggest flight and price predictor.
Because Bing is striving to gain yet another edge in its war with Google, the deal with Kayak will specifically cover providing users with “flight search results in the U.S. from multiple cities, airports and airlines”. This recent association between Bing and Kayak should be a good move for both companies to combat Google’s potentially formidable travel search service once the ITA acquisition completes.
Kayak will begin powering Bing’s flight metasearch within the next few weeks as a first step in their alliance. Moreover, users of the new service will gain access to more comprehensive flight listings and itineraries from Bing’s travel search section. However, the service will be available only in the United States.
Krista Pappas, Bing’s global travel industry director, said the deal would enable the company to concentrate on delivering more unique and valuable features for consumers.
Both, Microsoft and Kayak, are members of an organization called FairSearch, which is resisting Google’s $700 million takeover of ITA whose software powers the reservation system of most of the US airlines and online fare-evaluation services like Kayak.
Currently, Microsoft’s Bing is pulling strings on a dozen fronts to polish its results and offerings not to lure hardcore Google fans, but instead to woo the uncommitteds. This is what Bing had to say on what the impact for consumers will be: “the partnership means Bing Travel is getting more powerful and comprehensive when it comes to helping customers plan and book travel”.
Bing Travel is now a stronger product than it was. Bing’s alliance with WolframAlpha, along with both Twitter and Facebook, are strong examples of this.