FAST Holds First Annual Gathering Of Search Thought Leaders And Innovators At Enterprise Search Summit

FAST Holds First Annual Gathering Of Search Thought Leaders And
Innovators At Enterprise Search Summit


New York, NY, March 31 /PRNewswire/ -- 


    - Eight Global Organizations Honoured with "FAST Thinking" Awards for
Demonstrating the Most Innovative Business Applications of Enterprise Search
Technology



    Fast Search & Transfer (FAST), the leading developer of enterprise search
and real-time filtering technologies, announced that eight organizations were
named as recipients of the "FAST Thinking" awards at the FAST Search Leaders'
Summit held recently at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. FAST's
first annual Search Leaders' Summit offered attendees a forum where best
practices on the most diverse applications ofenterprise search could be
shared. The Summit also provided innovators and experts in the enterprise
search market an opportunity to share a more strategic view of enterprise
search, exchange ideas, discuss future possibilities, and take this knowledge
to drive improvements in their own search implementations.



    "For many organizations, enterprise search is still synonymous with
intranet or Web site search, and is often viewed as 'point solutions' within
an organization. As these organizations begin to realize the full potential
of deploying enterprise search at the very heart of their enterprise, FAST is
working with its leading clients and partners to reshape and lead the market
with new and innovative ways to apply search technology that simply haven't
been imagined before," commented John M. Lervik, FAST's chief executive
officer. "With the FAST Search Leaders' Summit, we are fostering innovation
in the enterprise search market by providing a much needed business-focused
forum where industry experts and thought leaders can share best practices and
ideas for the purpose of further advancing the ways in which enterprise
search technology is used."



    FAST Thinkers



    At this year's FAST Search Summit, representatives from organizations
including CareerBuilder.com, IBM.com, IBM Japan, Rakuten, LexisNexis,
Reuters, and Virgilio were presented with 'FAST Thinking Awards' in
recognition of deploying the most innovative applications of enterprise
search technology. The FAST Enterprise Search Platform (FAST ESP) allowed
these companies to find new ways to attack existing or new business demands,
while also helping them to gain value from streams of formerly untapped
information. From a wide variety of perspectives, FAST ESP offers
organizations such as these, countless new opportunities for tremendous
business growth by boosting the value of data that exists within and outside
the enterprise. By taking full advantage of this data, organizations find
that they are able to dramatically increase their revenues and lower costs
with little to no impact on their existing infrastructure.



    "We are pleased to see that a growing number of companies are choosing to
deploy FAST's scalable search solutions for some very unique mission-critical
applications," added Lervik.



    Examples of the innovative applications of FAST ESP by this year's
recipients include the following:



    - A major eCommerce site is now able to update more than 500 products per
second and has enabled near real-time bidding through effective
implementation of enterprise search technology. As a result, the site has
reduced the amount of hardware required by 66%, while simultaneously tripling
the peak number of queries per second capability



    - A major media news outlet is monitoring and detecting intellectual
property infringements and breaches of contract by its millions of news
subscribers



    -A major content publisher is using FAST ESP to provide industry-specific
research for its customers, allowing users to search from the Web and from
internal databases simultaneously - fully utilizing its most valuable assets
- the intellectual property and collective expertise already residing within
the firm



    - Italy's largest portal site developed and launched a new search product
in just under four months, aggregating its own disparate sources with results
from a leading Web search engine. This approach to federated search allowed
the portal to deliver the most relevant search results to its visitors,
regaining a leadership position and rapidly growing its bottom line



    - A leading online employment and recruiting site included FAST ESP at
the centre of its business model for doubling growth. Now, after experiencing
four times thisplanned growth rate, it handles up to 500 queries per second
and delivers results in less than a second.



    - FAST ESP has increased revenue and return on investment for one of the
world's busiest eCommerce sites. FAST ESP enables this company to process an
unlimited number of queries against a rapidly growing data volume and quickly
deliver targeted search results to its customers on the first click. This
company now handles an average of 450,000 queries a day and is poised for
continued growth.



    Running on low-cost, high performance servers, FAST ESP provides
organizations such as these with 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 offered by FAST though the FAST Data Search suite of
enterprise search solutions, which includes FAST Data Search for Site Search;
FAST Data Search for Compliance; FAST Data Search for eCommerce; FAST Data
Search for Intranets; and FAST Data Search 360. The FAST Data Search product
suite supplies a complete information retrieval solution ideal for key
vertical markets and applications including e-Commerce and Internet Portals,
Financial Services; Government; Life Sciences; Media and Publishing; and
Telecom.



    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, Chordiant, CIGNA, CNET,
Dell, Fidelity Investments, FirstGov.gov (GSA), Freeserve, IBM, LexisNexis,
Overture, Rakuten, Reed Elsevier, Reuters, Tenet Healthcare, Thomas
Industrial Network, 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.



    (c) 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.




DATASOURCE: Fast Search & Transfer ASA



Contact: Andrew Clough, FAST, Tel. [phone], Mob. [phone], Email:
[e-mail]

Copyright