Best Buy Travel Bias Influences New Hire for President $BBY $GOOG $EBAY $MOT $EXPE

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Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) finished up some outstanding business and hired a new President of the e-commerce and on-line divisions. Scott Durchslag former president of online travel company Expedia (Nasdaq:EXPE). He is also a former partner at McKinsey & Co. and has previously served as Skype’s chief operating officer prior to its sale by EBay (Nasdaq:EBAY) as well as a vice president at Motorola Inc. which partly has been swallowed by Google (Nasdaq:GOOG). Resume looks good.

But here is the bias to be concerned over. Hubert Joly the current President, CEO and Director is also from the online travel business. CW Travel Holdings long based in Minneapolis is also a major player in the travel business.  While corporations need to make sure the fit in the executive suite works you need to be concerned about too much background commonality.

The next question becomes: What do you do with the big boxes? The online guys will need big money to spend and the bricks and mortar environment is clearly not cutting it.

George Gutowski writes from a caveat emptor perspective. Follow him on twitter@financialskepti

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• Best Buy hires former Expedia, Skype executive Durchslag; may cut online prices to compete with Amazon (bizjournals.com)
• Best Buy Hires E-Commerce President (allthingsd.com)

Google Death Kiss

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Google (GOOG) covets ITA Software and wants to buy it for around $700 million. Microsoft (MSFT) and the travel business are not so sure. They fear Google’s entry into the travel business. Travel is one of the big horseman of on-line e-commerce. People buy tickets, holidays, hotel reservations and the rest of it. Google playing the fox in the hen-house claims they will just improve the people’s choices.

Google has aroused the suspicion of regulators around the world. Every time they make a major move they are subject to intense scrutiny. ITA may want to sell. ITA may like the price. ITA shareholders probably are ecstatic about liquefying their investment. But if Google keeps running afoul of regulators when will companies starting shunning their embrace. Who wants a long controversial closings which distract from the business at hand.

“Do no evil” is in danger of becoming a death kiss.

Disclosure: George Gutowski writes from a caveat emptor perspective. I hold no positions in stocks mentioned in this post.

Related Articles

• Online Travel and Technology Companies Launch FairSearch.org Coalition, Urge Justice Department to Challenge Google-ITA Deal (eon.businesswire.com)
• Expedia and friends team up to stop Google’s travel play (go.theregister.com)
• Online travel cos oppose Google, ITA deal -WSJ (reuters.com)
• Google volleys with the travel industry over its proposed ITA acquisition [TNW Google] (thenextweb.com)
• Coalition Reveals Opposition to Google’s ITA Purchase, Google Responds (readwriteweb.com)
• Travel Firms Band Together Against Google-ITA Deal (webpronews.com)
• Online travel companies oppose Google, ITA deal: report (reuters.com)
• The Google/Antitrust Story Continues With Objections to ITA Purchase (blogs.wsj.com)
• Google Faces Opposition to Purchase of Flight Search Technology, ITA (searchenginejournal.com)
• Google-ITA Deal Said to Meet Opposition (dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Travel companies band together against Google (news.cnet.com)
• Travel Sites Oppose Google ITA Purchase (online.wsj.com)