Fast Become a Microsoft Subsidiary

On the 25th April 2008, Microsoft announced that it has completed settlement of its tender offer for Fast Search & Transfer ASA, a leading provider of enterprise search solutions. Microsoft’s plans to acquire FAST were originally announced Jan. 8, 2008. FAST will operate as a Microsoft subsidiary, with a dedicated enterprise search research and development center in Oslo, Norway, and offices throughout the world. Microsoft paid in the region of $1.2bn for Fast.

TechModal is a reseller partner of both Fast and Micrsosoft. The acquisition presents many opportunities within the manufacturing and engineering sector. Microsoft software is ubiquitous and all companies operating with the manufacturing and engineering sector are customers of Microsoft. Prior to the acquisition the manufacturing and engineering was a sector where Fast had not developed a large footprint selling enterprise search technology. There is now an opportunity to Fast as a Microsoft subsidiary to offer significant value to manufacturing organisations by allowing employees to find information from anywhere in the organisation. Information that may previously have taken hours to locate could be found in seconds.

"What this purchase will do is allow Microsoft to go to the largest companies in the world and say, 'We can handle every search need you ever dreamed of,' " Whit Andrews- Gartner Analyst, Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/08/technology/msft.php)