Redmond, Wash., — Microsoft so far might have failed in its attempts to romance Yahoo, but its moves on a company from Norway have been much more successful. On Friday, Microsoft Corp. announced that it has completed its $1.2 billion purchase of Fast Search & Transfer ASA, an enterprise search company based in Oslo, Norway.
Microsoft originally announced plans to acquire FAST on Jan. 8, 2008. Fast Search and Transfer is 11 years old and makes internet search software.
The Norwegian company, which offers search platforms to help companies sift through and access internal data, will facilitate Microsoft develop upon and improve its existing enterprise search products.
FAST will become a subsidiary of Microsoft and its research team will be based in Oslo, Norway, according to a statement. The company’s existing sales and support teams will be maintained, and there are no immediate plans to alter pricing or licensing agreements, a spokesman said.
The company’s CEO, John Markus Lervik will switch from his role as FAST CEO to become Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Enterprise Search, reporting to Jeff Teper, corporate vice president for the company’s Office Business Platform.
“From the moment I started talking to Microsoft about the prospect of bringing our talent and technology together, I realized what a powerful impact we could have on the way companies use search to drive new revenue streams and improve productivity,” Lervik said. “Together we will deliver better technologies that make enterprise search a ubiquitous tool, central to how people find and use information.”
As a Microsoft subsidiary, under Lervik’s leadership; Fast will begin work on a variety of Microsoft projects, including Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express, search for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and FAST ESP, and future delivery of a single enterprise search platform, along with a dedicated portfolio of enterprise search research and development center in Oslo, Norway, and offices throughout the world.
“With our companies combined, we will be uniquely able to offer customers what they have been telling us they want most — a strategy for meeting everything from their basic to most complex enterprise search needs,” said Teper. “I am incredibly excited to have the talented team from FAST joining us.”
Interestingly, Microsoft is also not only assuring to support but produce “further innovation” for search products on both Linux and Unix systems, as well as Windows.
“There is a significant part of the [FAST customer base] that has chosen to run their systems on Unix and Linux,” said Jared Spataro, director, Microsoft Office SharePoint. “Many people thought we would err on the side of cutting those programs.”
Furthermore, Microsoft plans to keep on selling standalone products “at both the high-end and entry levels,” and is planning to release a version of ESP that is “tightly coupled with SharePoint,” according to Spataro.
“Spataro provided no release date for the SharePoint product or any other new offerings.”