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July 1 2010 - Google today announced the acquisition of Cambridge based ITA Software, undeniably the most comprehensive and user friendly air fare and schedule lookup site.  ITA is approximately a decade old, originally founded by MIT software experts who developed new ways to access and merge results from different airline CRM's. The site drew almost immediate praise for its simple and intuitive approach to presenting data to would be air travelers, and is one of the few things about the airline industry that has never been panned by consumer travel advocates like Kate Hanni or Christopher Elliott.  The original flight lookup format has not changed significantly in ten years, presenting flight data in ways to sort and select based on almost any desired criteria; for example, by carrier, total transit time, departure or arrival time, price, and more. After all, why fix what worked well from the get go and was never broken? Today's announcement named a price of $700 million. Ironically, the ITASoftware.com web site cannot actually sell you a ticket.  Instead, it just tells flyers exactly what to ask for. The site has no advertisers; however, its phenomenal search engine is operating behind the scenes within the e-travel industry.  Check out ITASoftware.com   Read comments.