The news that Microsoft has made an offer for FAST, the Norwegian developer of an OEM search platform, raises an interesting question. Is MS buying FAST as an enterprise search product, as this announcement seems to indicate, or is FAST part of a larger strategy to transform web search from the 'one big search engine' (aka Google) model into a 'tens of thousands of specialty and vertical search providers' model?
As I've indicated in previous posts, the vertical and/or specialty search model will enable MS (or whoever gets there first with a platform) to create an army of 3rd party search developers that incorporate their own domain knowledge into general purpose search engine feeds with various business models from ad-sponsored to premium subscriptions.
This is one strategy to counter the Google juggernaut and change the ad game game in search. FAST's OEM platform looks like a candidate for that. It would be nice to see some real competition in search from the original Redmondistas.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
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