Microsoft Agrees to Buy Fast Search for $1.23 Billion from Bloomberg reports that Microsoft is buying FAST Search. The Norwegian search company, Fast Search & Transfer ASA, will be bought by Microsoft for 6.6 billion kroner or $1.23 billion. Microsoft will buy the company via the Oslo Stock Exchange, share by share. Here is the release from Microsoft.
FAST’s share price rose 41 percent to 18.8 kroner from the news. Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division said:
“Enterprise search is becoming an indispensable tool to businesses of all sizes, helping people find, use and share critical business information quickly.”
Raikes’s unit, Microsoft’s largest in terms of sales, is looking for new ways to grow since many existing customers already own the basic Office suite of word processing, spreadsheet and e-mail software.
The purchase will be completed in the second quarter of 2008, Microsoft said. Shareholders with 37 percent of Fast Search’s stock, including Orkla ASA and Hermes Focus Asset Management Europe, have already accepted the offer and the company’s board unanimously backs the proposal, according to a statement sent through the Oslo Stock Exchange.
Fast Search, which posted losses the past two quarters, has cut jobs to reduce costs and revive earnings. The company expects to be profitable in 2008.
Fast Search reported a third-quarter loss of $100 million, after a loss of $26 million in the second quarter. The company, which started in 1997 and went public in 2001, had sales of $163 million in 2006. It posted a profit of $3.5 million that year.
Microsoft plans to carve out a share of the business-search market, building on corporate demand for its Windows and Office software. Besides handling search, SharePoint lets corporate workers set up Web sites, organize documents and collaborate on projects.
SEO Traffic King Conclusion: The rest of this industry is going to consolidate fast.
More about the Fastsearch Company
Fast Search set up thier company in Norway back in 1997, they have grown rapidly to become a global organization with offices across six continents. They are at the forefront of search technology.
