FAST UNVEILS FAST ESP™ -- FAST Enterprise Search Platform Sets Standard for Complete, Single Point Retrieval and Discovery of Relevant Information Across the Enterprise and the Web

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January 28 2004--Fast Search & Transfer™ (FAST™), the leading developer of enterprise search and real-time alerting technologies, today introduced FAST ESP™, an enterprise search platform that for the first time enables organizations to intelligently and dynamically retrieve and analyze the complete collection of information existing across their entire enterprise and from the Web.



Running on low-cost, high performance servers, the precision-engineered FAST Enterprise Search Platform (FAST ESP) enables organizations to efficiently gain a 360-degree view of relevant structured data stored in databases, as well as the unstructured data of documents, emails, presentations, Web pages, and more. Whether data exists in multiple databases and applications, on corporate intranets, or on the Web, FAST ESP provides unlimited access and scalability in data volume, number of users, and freshness of data. It also enables organizations to draw one complete, accurate, secure, and intelligent view of all the information they need to advance the fortunes of the enterprise. FAST ESP is designed for rapid integration with low or no impact on the existing infrastructure, and supports multiple deployments from a single implementation.



“FAST ESP represents a paradigm shift; we are advancing our highly acclaimed enterprise search technology to the next level, putting greater distance between FAST and competing solutions, and providing a single platform solution that will transform the search market as it exists today,” commented John M. Lervik, FAST’s chief executive officer. “From a wide variety of perspectives, FAST ESP offers countless new opportunities for tremendous business growth by boosting the value of data that exists within, and outside the enterprise. While enabling our customers to gain value from streams of formerly untapped information, FAST ESP is also propelling FAST and our global partners into new markets, where there is a need to harvest information from massive silos of data to enable well-informed business decisions.”



According to a report soon to be published by industry analysts at IDC, unstructured information in the form of e-mails, instant messages, Web pages, documents, presentations and the like, now represents an estimated 80% of the enterprise data collection. Database technology is simply not built nor equipped to handle the various search and information-retrieval tasks associated with this kind of information. However, with FAST ESP, organizations can effectively aggregate, index, and extract the value from 100% of its data by treating the information throughout the entire enterprise as a unified asset.



“Enterprises tell us that their primary goal in investing in new content technologies today is to unify access to all of their information,” said Susan Feldman, IDC's Research VP for content technologies. "FAST's ESP creates a broad platform for finding and analyzing any kind of information—structured or unstructured—in any repository. It's a leap into the future. IDC believes that this product ushers in a new generation of information access platforms that will provide a unified view of enterprise information. The platform is standards-based and highly scalable. FAST ESP also automates processes like taxonomy building that were previously labor-intensive, and it creates real time access to both data and content. That's impressive."



“Enterprise-wide search is rapidly becoming a pivotal IT capability because it is the catalyst that transforms the huge volume and diversity of data within enterprises into unified, focused information assets for driving business efficiency,” commented Bjørn Olstad, FAST’s chief technology officer. “As a single search platform that sits at the center of an IT infrastructure, FAST ESP greatly enhances the information retrieval and analysis process by unifying, monitoring, and retrieving all of the disparate data sources that house information most critical to an organization’s success.”



FAST ESP fundamentally alters an enterprise’s ability to manage and use its information to more effectively compete in the around-the-clock business world. The new capabilities of FAST ESP complements and strengthens enterprise software suites such as ERP, CRM and SCM, as well as software systems for data mining, data extraction, data warehousing, and business intelligence. It can be implemented with low or no impact on existing infrastructure, and dramatically increases the ROI of an organization’s investment in enterprise data. Its architecture is open, modular, and scalable across three dimensions: data volume, number of users and frequency of use, and data latency. FAST ESP also includes strong support for fault tolerance and data consistency; real-time data input and query capabilities; high-level, tuneable, multi-lingual relevancy frameworks; LiveAnalytics™ for integrated on-the-fly information access and discovery; and BMCP™ which enables business users to tune and optimize the system to reflect business objectives.



FAST ESP Enables Business Specific Applications

FAST ESP is transforming enterprise search into an IT infrastructure necessity and a key enabler for mission-critical applications, including eCommerce, Financial Services; Government; Life Sciences; Media and Publishing; and Telecom applications. “FAST’s unique, single-platform approach is setting new search standards for customers and partners worldwide by providing them with scalable, industrial strength search solutions that address their needs and allow them to migrate from smaller installations to cost efficient enterprise-wide deployments, as required, without changing software platform,” commented Ali Riaz, FAST’s chief operating officer.



FAST ESP is the underlying technology of the new portfolio of FAST Data Search™ solutions, which are specifically formulated for high-value enterprise functions that can directly impact revenue. Among these are:

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FAST Data Search™ for Site Search – Delivers a proven solution for high traffic sites requiring rapid accurate results, fault-tolerant deployments, continuous updating of information available from the site, and support for multiple languages for a global presence.

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FAST Data Search™ for eCommerce – Provides sub-second, accurate responses to customer queries to maximize revenue, minimize abandonment, and increase customer satisfaction for repeat business.

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FAST Data Search™ for Intranets – Creates and continually maintains an instantly searchable index of the entire enterprise collection of structured and unstructured data within an organization’s Intranet.

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FAST Data Search™ for Compliance – Provides organizations a single secure access point to find and retrieve all of the collections of documents, transactions, and e-mails pertinent to help monitor, identify and surface potential violations.

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FAST Data Search™ 360 – Presents organizations with the most complete search solution for retrieving highly relevant information from their enterprise, be it from any number of global databases, their intranet, or the Web.



Search Derivative Applications (SDAs)

FAST ESP provides all the technology needed to create specialized search-dependent solutions called Search Derivative Applications (SDAs). “In addition to consolidating and vastly improving upon key business functions, such as site search, intranet search and eCommerce, FAST ESP technology can be deployed to create new and innovative SDAs to solve demanding business problems, such as brand and content protection, anti-money laundering, and market intelligence. FAST ESP presents new ways of attacking problems like these that simply have not been possible before,” added Riaz.



Rather than requiring totally separate development efforts and implementation, SDAs can be rapidly developed based on the flexible framework of the FAST ESP platform. This focused flexibility results in very efficient use of development and support resources, and of investments in physical equipment.



FAST ESP simply marries a “no technical boundaries” approach with a clear understanding of real-world requirements: extraordinary performance, precise accuracy, broad reach, and high return on investment. For FAST, the search never stops.



About FAST

FAST creates the real-time search and filter technology solutions that are behind the scenes at the world’s best known companies with the most demanding search problems. FAST’s flexible and scalable integrated technology platform elevates the search capabilities of enterprise customers and connects people to the relevant information they seek regardless of medium. This drives revenues and reduces total cost of ownership by effectively leveraging IT infrastructure. FAST’s powerful enterprise search technology solutions are used by a wide range of global customers and partners, including AT&T, Cardinal Health, CareerBuilder.com, Charles Schwab & Co., Chordiant, CIGNA, CNET, Dell, Fidelity Investments, FirstGov.gov (GSA), Freeserve, IBM, LexisNexis, Nordstrom, Overture, Rakuten, Reed Elsevier, Reuters, Tenet Healthcare, T-Online, US Army, Virgilio (Telecom Italia), and Vodafone.

FAST operates globally with presence in the United States, Europe, and Japan. FAST is publicly traded under the ticker symbol 'FAST' on the Oslo Stock Exchange. Please visit www.fastsearch.com for more information.



© 2004 Fast Search & Transfer ASA - Fast Search & Transfer, FAST, FAST Data Search, FAST ESP and the FAST four-colored logo are trademarks of Fast Search & Transfer ASA. All rights reserved. FAST disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.