Sam Oliver
Online travel behemoth Priceline has struck a deal that will see it pay $2.6 billion for OpenTable, a provider of online reservation technology for restaurants that underpins Siri's table booking functionality.
Priceline will pay $103 per share — a $29 premium over the stock's June 12 closing price — for OpenTable in the all-cash acquisition. Executives from both companies touted Priceline's ability to help OpenTable as the latter attempts to expand into foreign markets.
"We look forward to helping the OpenTable team accelerate their global expansion, increase the value offered to their restaurant partners, and enhance the end-to-end experience for our collective customers across desktop and mobile devices," Priceline CEO Darren Huston said.
OpenTable chief Matt Roberts echoed the sentiment, calling out Priceline's "exceptional track record of customer service in dozens of languages around the world."
Apple integrated OpenTable into Siri beginning with iOS 6, allowing the personal digital assistant to help iPhone owners make restaurant reservations. It is unclear how the Priceline agreement, which is expected to close in the third quarter of this year, may affect OpenTable's relationship with Apple.
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63 Comments
Apple buys Priceline? ;-)
When I see this kind of thing, I realize I live in a very different world than some people. I couldn't tell you the last time I went to a restaurant that even had reservations.
Also, that's almost the cost of the Beats transaction.
I'm sorry but I would never have Siri make a dinner reservation for me. I wouldn't even THINK to do so. The mistake they made with Siri is that it could do niche tasks like this before it could do something as simple as open an App on your phone. They haven't built enough trust in Siri to perform the simple tasks, so advanced tasks like "Make a reservation" or "Buy me tickets" are way out of people's perception of what it can do.
[quote name="pmz" url="/t/180640/priceline-to-buy-apple-partner-opentable-for-2-6-billion#post_2550082"]I'm sorry but I would never have Siri make a dinner reservation for me. I wouldn't even THINK to do so. The mistake they made with Siri is that it could do niche tasks like this before it could do something as simple as open an App on your phone. They haven't built enough trust in Siri to perform the simple tasks, so advanced tasks like "Make a reservation" or "Buy me tickets" are way out of people's perception of what it can do.[/quote] You don't know much about Siri. It was always able to open apps. In fact this was a feature of the OS before Siri, just like playing a song by voice. There were many other voice commands that were not on by default as well under accessibility options. Opening apps and songs was on by default. I used it all the time.
A billion here. A billion there. Pretty soon you're talking about real money.