Microsoft Bids for Norwegian Search Engine Firm
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Microsoft bid $1.2 billion for Fast Search and Transfer, based in Oslo, in an effort to add more tools to its lucrative Office products.
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Microsoft Corp. plans Tuesday to officially launch its updated and renamed Internet search engine, the latest step in a massive effort to make headway against market leaders Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc.
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SEATTLE Microsoft launches Web search technology today that it hopes will give it a share of the market dominated by Google. The new search engine will initially be available only on a special test site.
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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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In the midst of the world's CES frenzy, Microsoft today announced plans to acquire Fast Search & Transfer, a financially and legally troubled Norwegian-based software firm offering highly regarded search software for online ad serving.
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Microsoft Corp. offered to buy search engine operator Yahoo Inc. for $44.6 billion in cash and stock in a move to boost its competitive edge in the online services market.
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Microsoft is joining search firms Google, Yahoo! and British advertising agency WPP in the battle to sell internet advertising.
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After months of speculation and two 'preview' releases, Microsoft has taken the wraps off of its new MSN search engine, the first major competitor to join the big leagues of web search in nearly a year.
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Microsoft has offered to buy enterprise search software company Fast Search And Transfer for 6.6 billion Norwegian kroner ($1.2 billion), it said 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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Microsoft on Thursday will launch its long-promised Internet search engine, which will compete directly with market leader Google, sources close to the company said Tuesday.
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Microsoft has offered to buy enterprise search software company Fast Search And Transfer for 6.6 billion Norwegian kroner ($1.2 billion), it said Tuesday.The acquisition will bring Microsoft powerful high-end search technologies to complement its enterprise infrastructure offering, the company said.Microsoft&#39;s recent efforts in the enterprise search market have been aimed at the other end of the market. In November, It introduced two new low-end enterprise search products,&#160;Search Server 2008 and Search Server Express 2008, both based on its SharePoint Server 2007 business productivity platform. It is pitching&#160;Search Server 2008&#160;as a cheap entry into enterprise search, while the Express version is free for single installations.By integrating Fast Search&#39;s products with SharePoint, and drawing on its worldwide network of partners, Microsoft hopes to bring Fast Search&#39;s products to a wider audience, it said Tuesday.It is also counting on Fast Search&#39;s Norwegian research team to bolster its research efforts in Europe. Microsoft has laboratories in Cambridge, England, and in Copenhagen, Denmark.The directors of Fast Search, based in Oslo, have recommended that shareholders accept the offer, which represents a premium of 42 percent over Fast Search&#39;s share price at close of business on Friday. The companies expect the deal to close in the second quarter, subject to customary closing conditions, including the approval of the holders of at least 90 percent of Fast Search&#39;s shares.Fast Search&#39;s rivals in the market for specialized enterprise search tools include Google, with its Search Appliance; French search company Exalead, and Autonomy, which recently acquired Meridio and Zantaz.Representatives of Fast Search could not immediately be reached for comment.&#160;
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Redmond-based Microsoft Corp. on Thursday launched a test version of its new MSN Search service, hoping to compete with Google and other major Web search services.
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New York - Microsoft Corp will roll out its long-awaited internet search service on Thursday, adding fresh competition to Google Inc, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
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(InfoWorld) - Word that Microsoft had a crack team of developers in Silicon Valley working on a cutting-edge search project is news to the company's head of search and advertising. "When they get it done, I hope they'll send me a link to it so I'll know about it," Satya Nadella, corporate vice president of Microsoft's search and advertising platform group, jokingly said late on Monday at the Search Marketing Expo in Seattle. He was responding to a question about a rumor making the rounds online that a team of engineers at Microsoft's Mountain View office is working on a new search engine to replace its existing one. While Nadella denied any specific effort to build a new search engine, he did say that his group, as a very young search operation compared to some other giants, would need to take risks in order to improve its position. Microsoft search is just over 3 years old and has about 10 percent of the market, he said. "We'll experiment," he said. One way that Microsoft may work to improve its search ranking is by trying to leverage its position as a content provider. The MSN portal has around 500 million unique users globally, he said. His group is trying to find ways to encourage them to use Microsoft's Live search. The MSN A-List is an example of that effort. The A-List is a page that shows top searches on Live search. In addition, the main Microsoft.com page only recently got a Live search bar, he said. Microsoft will also have to differentiate its search product from the others to get ahead, he said. Offerings like 3D maps, where he thinks Microsoft is in the lead, as well as mobile and image search could help the company gain users. Longer term, Nadella wants to experiment with and "reconceptualize" the search user interface. There's a "ton" of innovation that can be done on the user experience side, he said. In addition to innovating on new products, Nadella's group will get more scientific in researching how customers use Live search. "The crux of our problem is how do we get existing searchers to use it more," he said. To figure out how to do that, he wants to have more data about things like abandonment rates. Microsoft has an uphill battle to fight as it competes against current search leaders. Microsoft's Live search trails far behind Google, which has about half of the search market share. Yahoo, the second largest search provider, had nearly 27 percent share in April, according to ComScore Networks.
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Microsoft Corp. plans to officially  launch on Tuesday its new Windows Live Search engine, a pillar  in its strategy to topple market leader Google and wrestle away  billions of dollars worth of online advertising.
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Microsoft bid $1.2 billion for Fast Search & Transfer, which specializes in high-end Internet search and business intelligence systems now used by many major companies.