Microsoft / FAST: New search milieu to Norway.

[kgun]

Microsoft just announced today that the greatest search cluster office outside USA will be localized to Sintef (text in Norwegian). The main points in the article:

1. Background for the establishment is that Microsoft bought the Norwegian Search engine Fast some time ago. Fast's groundbreaking search technology was developed at Gløshaugen ved NTNU and this technology milieu was the main factor that Google and Yahoo established offices in Trondheim.
2. Global senter. Microsoft will now make Norway to its global senter for search engine technology and company search.
3. Search cluster. In the short run Microsoft will employ about 50 researchers and developers to development milieus in Oslo, Trondheim and Tromsø. This adds to the 300 scientists already employed by FAST Search & Transfer in Norway.
4. Company search still important but internet search will be more important in the future according to the Tv news today.

[kgun]

Since I started this thread, more articles about the subject have been published on the internet like these:

• Microsoft to build new search base in Norway - Aftenposten.no
• PC World - Business Center: Microsoft to Expand Research Center in Norway
• Ballmer: Microsoft Not Immune to Financial Crisis
• Microsoft Calls for Passage of Bailout Plan / Market turbulence wipes out oil fund's stock gains

Fast is known for being good on enterprise search and Autonomy is regarded as one among many competitors including Google.

One interesting article: The Future of Search is Simpler

"In a sharp contrast, Google provided more vision in their 10-minute lunch pitch than Autonomy's same old key note speech. Google provided a clear vision: you can be up and operational in one day and search everything. Simple to use and simple to administer. In 2008, Google is not the naive implementation that we saw 6 years ago: they have made real progress toward their vision. While other companies are marching to that vision. Dieselpoint's OpenPipeline, Endeca's simple administrative controls, Fast's navigators, Autonomy's categorization, Google is providing the vision. The future is simpler and usable by everyone on the enterprise. We have along way to go - but we can change the business world. We are moving closer to the vision of many sources of data providing insight and increasing the pace of business decisions".