Search Spending Spree
When Microsoft announced today that it would buy enterprise search firm Fast
Search & Technology for a cool $1.2 billion, it signaled Microsoft's serious
commitment to staving off the threat of both Google and IBM's OmniFind in the
enterprise search arena.
FST will give Microsoft the ability to woo developers with a richer set of
tools around enterprise search, enabling sophisticated functions like pivot
searches and expanding the scope of search beyond data to people in the organization.
The purchase also promises to amp up the scalability of Microsoft's enterprise
search offerings. Ultimately, FST CEO John Lervik expects search to emerge as
a bonafide platform that handles all search "in a unified manner."
According to Redmond insiders, FST will become the core of Microsoft's top-end
enterprise search offering, running atop SharePoint Search Server. You can read
Barbara Darrow's report on the purchase here.
Microsoft is well-known for buying its way into the party. What do you think
of the decision to purchase FST, and what advice might you want to share with
Microsoft as it forges a strategy around the new acquisition? E-mail me at [email protected].
Posted by Michael Desmond on 01/08/2008