Microsoft is acquiring FAST Search for $1.2 billion

Obviously if this goes through, and we expect it will, it moves Microsoft into the Tier 1 position and creates an interesting situation for Autonomy, and to a lesser extent the Google search appliance.

Links to ZDNet, Yahoo!, Reuters -- many others online.

This continues the trend of search engine acquisitions.  Could Endeca or Autonomy be next?  If so, would Oracle be the logical choice?  Google, IBM and now Microsoft already have well established enterprise packages.  Although Oracle has its own private brand of search, so did Microsoft, but that didn't stop them.