Microsoft has relaunched Farecast a couple of hours ago. Yesterday while I tried to access to this site, it was down. With the new logo, Farecast is apparently being built into part of the Microsoft Live Search platform.

In April this year, I did profiled a news pertaining to the purchase of Farecast by Microsoft, and even wondering whether Microsoft will going to merge the MSN Travel and Farecast, but with this relaunch site, Farecast will still remain as the same old Farecast that we know, and virtually nothing changes can be found on the landing page, not to mention the change of Farecast’s corporate logo. The only small change I find right now is from MSN Travel, where users will find airfares prediction and deals by Farecast in a small column located in the left hand side of MSN Travel.

Microsoft is on shopping spree again. This time they are acquiring Farecast, and this news has been confirmed by Farecast’s blog. Farecast, is a Web 2.0 travel portal that enabled their users to predict whether prices of flights or hotels will go up and down, so users are much aware of when to buy through the output of predicted data.

From this buy, Microsoft is signaling its intention to build an all-round Internet capabilities as part of a larger Internet empire. Features available in Farecast has also been built into Microsoft’s existing MSN Travel, at this moment not sure Microsoft will merge these two into one, as either one of them did not bridge the gap of the other.

Although the sum of acquisition has not been disclosed by either party of them, but the price tag might go up to $115 million, as reported by Seattle P-I.

via [search engine land]