Microsoft completes FAST purchase

by Chris Kanaracus

April 25, 2008 —

Microsoft has completed
its US$1.2 billion purchase of FAST
Search & Transfer and will install the company's CEO as head of a newly
formed enterprise search group, it said Friday.

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.

FAST CEO John Markus Lervik will become corporate vice president of enterprise
search at Microsoft, reporting to Jeff Teper, corporate vice president for the
company's Office Business Platform.

Lervik's group will be charged with developing a full line of enterprise search
products, ranging from the low-end Search Server 2008 Express to FAST's ESP
offering. In the future, the group will develop "a single enterprise search
platform" as well, according to Microsoft.

Interestingly, Microsoft is also promising to not only support but produce
"further innovation" for search products on both Linux and Unix systems,
as well as Windows.

"There's a significant part of the [FAST customer base] that have 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."

In addition, Microsoft plans to continue 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.

When Microsoft first announced its intent
to buy FAST in January, the news prompted some observers to conclude that
the technology had arrived. Now the company will go up against a handful of
large search players like Autonomy, as well as a wide array of small, specialized
vendors. Spataro declined to comment on whether Microsoft is planning additional
acquisitions.

As for FAST, search analyst Stephen Arnold previously noted in a January
blog post that integrating the company's technologies won't be easy.

"First, Microsoft SharePoint is complex. The Fast Search enterprise search
platform (ESP) is complex. Integrating two complex systems will be a challenge,"
he wrote. "Microsoft's engineers and Fast Search's engineers are up to
this task. The question will be 'How long will the meshing take?'"

IDG News Service