Microsoft-FAST: A kinder, gentler takeover?

The big news this week in enterprise search was the Microsoft acquisition of FAST Search - so at the risk of providing a MicrosoFast overdose, so I'll toss out one more observation.

When Autonomy acquired competitor and larger search industry leader Verity in early November 2005, they announced that the conversion "was complete" a week later. While a number of clients might maintain it is still not complete, it was clear right from the start that K2 was being phased out, and that customers would be expected to convert to IDOL - either through the interim step of using the K2 emulation API or by converting directly to IDOL. 

Unlike Autonomy's acquisition, Microsoft has not announced plans to 'convert' customers over to its technology. In fact, it seems that FAST will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft for at least a year, and possibly beyond. This should give current and potential FAST customers some comfort that a major conversion - or replacement - is not planned in near future.

When faced with a major conversion, recent history has shown that companies will take the step of evaluating all options - and not all customers will stay with their current vendor. Google and FAST both won some major deals after the Verity acquisition, so it remains to be seen what impact this deal will have. Stay tuned.