Lot of buzz around this announcement:
Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq “MSFT”) today announced that it will make an offer to acquire Fast Search & Transfer ASA (OSE: “FAST”), a leading provider of enterprise search solutions, through a cash tender offer for 19.00 Norwegian kroner (NOK) per share. This offer represents a 42 percent premium to the closing share price on Jan. 4, 2008 (the last trading day prior to this announcement), and values the fully diluted equity of FAST at 6.6 billion NOK (or approximately $1.2 billion U.S.). FAST’s board of directors has unanimously recommended that its shareholders accept the offer. In addition, shareholders representing in aggregate 37 percent of the outstanding shares, including FAST’s two largest institutional shareholders, Orkla ASA and Hermes Focus Asset Management Europe, have irrevocably undertaken to accept the offer. The transaction is expected to be completed in the second quarter of calendar year 2008.
Press Release - http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/jan08/01-08FastSearchPR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases
Michael seems to suggest that we will see more announcements like this in coming months and points to a number of other postings about this topic in Microsoft acquires leading enterprise search vendor FAST : SharePoint to benefit . Some other interesting reads are what Kirk Koenigsbauer (General Manager, SharePoint Business Group) has to say on the Microsoft Enterprise Search blog about the Fast acquisition. as well as the posting in Redmond Magazine about Microsoft,Fast combo to yield better search dev tools.
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