Microsoft Bids $1.2 bln for Fast
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Microsoft has offered to buy Norwegian Internet-search software firm Fast Search & Transfer for about $1.2 billion.
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Microsoft buys a $240m stake in the social networking site Facebook, beating rival Google
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Microsoft Corp beat out rival Google Inc on Wednesday in a battle to invest in socializing Web site Facebook, agreeing to pay $240 million for a roughly 1.6 percent stake in the Web phenomenon and expand a deal to sell advertising.
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No. 1 software maker Microsoft Corp.   on Thursday awarded restricted stock worth $951  million, based on its current share price, as performance  bonuses to some 900 executives and managers.
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Microsoft Corp  beat out Google  Inc  on Wednesday in a battle to invest in socializing  Web site Facebook, agreeing to pay $240 million for a 1.6  percent stake in the Web phenomenon.
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Cable company Comcast and Microsoft announced a deal Monday that will offer the software giant's new digital cable software platform to more than 1 million homes beginning next week.
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A venture led by the Microsoft co-founder has applied to bid in a U.S. auction of wireless airwaves, along with Google, AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm.
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Microsoft has announced the resignation of its head of acquisitions, Bruce Jaffe, two days after the company&#160;bid $1.2 billion for enterprise search expert Fast Search &amp; Transfer. Jaffe will retire on Feb. 29, the company said.
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Microsoft said its planned $1.2 billion acquisition of Fast Search & Transfer, or FAST, will give it a full-fledged enterprise search product line that can scale to billions of documents.
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In a bold move to counter Googleâs online pre-eminence, Microsoft said that it had made an unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo for about $44.6 billion in a mix of cash and stock.
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Microsoft Corp  on Friday said  it had offered to acquire Yahoo Inc  in a proposed cash  and stock deal valued at $44.6 billion.
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Microsoft Corp  said on Monday  that its $44.6 billion unsolicited offer for Yahoo Inc   was generous and it expects Yahoo's board and shareholders to  agree to the buyout quickly.
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TechWeb - Microsoft is paying a 42% premium for Fast Search & Transfer, but the technology could be a gold mine for the first big vendor to get it right.
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Microsoft has announced the resignation of its head of acquisitions, Bruce Jaffe, two days after the company&#160;bid $1.2 billion for enterprise search expert Fast Search &amp; Transfer. Jaffe will retire on Feb. 29, the company said.Jaffe joined the company&#39;s corporate strategy group in 1995, moving on to become chief financial officer of its online services business MSN before taking the role of corporate vice president for corporate development, where he was responsible for the company&#39;s acquisitions and joint ventures strategies.&quot;Bruce&#39;s contribution to Microsoft&#39;s growth is much appreciated and we wish him well in his next endeavor,&quot; the company said in a statement.It&#39;s not clear yet what that next endeavor will be, although some reports say he is looking for a more entrepreneurial role in a smaller company.Jaffe, who has a Masters in Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, lives near Seattle.As architect of Microsoft&#39;s acquisitions strategy, Jaffe presided over its&#160;$6 billion offer for online advertising company aQuantive, a few weeks after Google bid $3.1 billion for DoubleClick.Microsoft representatives would not say what role Jaffe played in the company&#39;s bid for Norwegian company Fast Search &amp; Transfer, revealed Tuesday.
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"Enterprise search is becoming an indispensable tool to businesses of all sizes, helping people find, use and share critical business information quickly"  Microsoft Corp. bid $1.2 billion for the Norwegian search engine company Fast Search &amp; Transfer ASA on Tuesday as it seeks to help companies trawl for information on the Internet.The offer of $2.97 per share, or 19 kroner, was 42 percent premium to the Norwegian company's recent average share price, and caused the stock to soar by nearly the same amount in early trading on the Oslo stock exchange. Fast's board unanimously recommended that shareholders accept the offer, a news release said. Read more
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In November, Microsoft representatives began to comment that the enterprise search market had reached &quot;a tipping point&quot;; on Tuesday, the company backed up that claim with a bundle of cash,&#160;offering to buy enterprise search software company Fast Search And Transfer (FAST)&#160;for 6.6 billion Norwegian kroner ($1.2 billion).Analysts and other search firms said Tuesday the move means that enterprise search has truly arrived as a software category, and also that further consolidation will likely occur in the space, creating opportunities for niche players.No immediate stumbling blocks appear to be in the way of Microsoft buying FAST, which is based in Oslo. The company&#39;s board has recommended that shareholders accept the offer, which represents a premium of 42 percent over FAST&#39;s share price at close of business on Friday. The companies expect the deal to close in the second quarter.&quot;It&#39;s a great bit of technology acquisition for Microsoft,&quot; said Mike Davis, senior analyst with Ovum Group.Microsoft is buying FAST as a way to break into the high-end enterprise search market and also offer customers a full range of search products. In November, it&#160;introduced Search Server 2008 and Search Server Express 2008. Microsoft is pitching Search Server 2008 as a cheap entry into enterprise search, while the Express version is free for single installations.FAST&#39;s rivals include Autonomy -- which recently acquired Meridio and Zantaz -- and Endeca.Davis said it would not surprise him if a rival vendor, such as Oracle, follows up Microsoft&#39;s move with a high-end search acquisition of its own.He and another analyst suggested Tuesday that Microsoft has not only scooped up a solid company but got a bargain in the process.Guy Creese, an analyst with Burton Group, argued on his blog that FAST&#39;s recent financial troubles, which led to layoffs last year, probably helped drive down its price tag.&quot;While the operational wheels fell off, the FAST technology is strong at its core,&quot; added Creese, who called the pending deal &quot;a huge coup&quot; for Microsoft.But cost was not the driving factor in Microsoft&#39;s choice of FAST over other high-end search vendors in the space, according to Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft&#39;s business division.Raikes insisted during a conference call Tuesday afternoon that FAST simply had the best people and technology.The executive didn&#39;t shed much light on the negotiation process that led up to Tuesday&#39;s announcement, but did indicate one aspect of Redmond&#39;s immediate plans, assuming the deal closes as expected.&quot;I can simply say that part of what we will look at ... will be to marry the strengths we have with our software-plus-services model with what FAST is doing.&quot;Raikes said FAST&#39;s technological strengths, such as its scalability and domain-specific searching capabilities, proved attractive to Microsoft.He declined to say whether the FAST acquisition will have any impact on Microsoft&#39;s Internet search products, but did not rule out the possibility.Raikes asserted that Microsoft will emerge as the go-to vendor for enterprise search customers once the deal is finalized.&quot;We think most customers are recognizing that they don&#39;t want their enterprise search to be fragmented across the organization,&quot; he said. &quot;Customers are going to want to choose a search strategy and the offerings from one vendor.&quot;Despite that view, Tuesday&#39;s news had smaller, specialized enterprise search vendors, such as Brainware, brimming with confidence, at least publicly.&quot;We&#39;re excited because it really heightens the importance of enterprise search applications,&quot; said Brainware&#39;s CFO and general counsel, James Zubok. &quot;But the biggest reason we&#39;re excited is that technology like ours is highly complementary [to broader offerings],&quot; he said.Brainware claims its search software can return useful results even when search terms are misspelled, or from illegible documents.Robert Tennant, CEO of Recommind, a search company that focuses on e-discovery, said Microsoft&#39;s move foretells a changing role for search. &quot;We believe that search is really important to the next generation of all software,&quot; he said. &quot;It provides information access with context. We believe that you&#39;ll see search ... woven within the fabric of other applications.&quot;Tennant also predicted it will be &quot;many years&quot; before Microsoft will produce specialized, vertical search products like those offered by Recommind.Raul Valdes-Perez, CEO of Vivisimo, which makes the Velocity Search Platform for enterprises, echoed the notion that Microsoft&#39;s investment is good for the market overall. &quot;I think we will have, eventually, one less competitor and many more partners,&quot; he said.But he also argued that the real beneficiaries of such consolidation could be companies like his own. &quot;I think there&#39;s a lot of uncertainty, and in this environment enterprise customers are going to look for predictability.&quot;Microsoft&#39;s stock was down $1.14 in late trading Tuesday to $33.47, on a bad day overall for the market.IDG News Service&#39;s Peter Sayer contributed to this report.
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Microsoft will offer up to $600 per server (up to a maximum of $15,000) to companies who agree to switch from Novell to Windows servers, it has been revealed.