Microsoft Bought Farecast!

In my post earlier this week, I speculated that the secret buyer for Farecast might be:

Kayak/Sidestep (40% chance)
Google (30% chance)
NewsCorp (20% chance)
Others (10% chance)

Well according to the Seattle PI which broke the original news about the purchase, the confirmed buyer is Microsoft. There goes my predictive ability. According to them, a Microsoft spokesperson said:

"We are pleased to announce that we have acquired Farecast, a Seattle-based smart travel search engine, and we welcome them to the Microsoft family. Farecast has been a partner of ours on MSN Travel and we look forward to working closely with the Farecast team to incorporate and apply its technology in new and interesting ways."

There is also a blog post from Hugh Dean confirming this.

I should have seen this coming since Farecast and MSN have worked closely. See this press release last year:

MSN and Farecast.com Launch Free Airfare Predictions, Planning Tools

But I thought that after Microsoft sold off Expedia to InterActive Corp years ago, they were getting out of the travel biz. I guess that was before their OSG (Online Services Group) was re-energized by Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's Chief Software Architect.

So it looks like Microsoft is taking out its checkbook and getting into the consumer space even more. And purchases like this will certainly push Yahoo! shareholders into a loveless marriage with the Ultimate Geek!

The game just gets more interesting every day.....