Microsoft’s Acquisition of Fast
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008Microsoft has stated that it bought Fast to become a one-stop shop for enterprise search at the high end as well as at the low/medium end (”infrastructure search”). This is a compelling $1.2B argument that high-end search is what enterprises need, contrary to previous claims about infrastructure search being good enough.
[An alternative hypothesis is that Microsoft thinks low-end search is good enough for the enterprise and will try eventually to switch over the customer base from Fast, but wanted to immediately jump-start its play into enterprise search. If so, both Microsoft and Fast customers may well be in for a surprise.]
