WebProNews

Even though Microsoft acquired Norway's Fast Search and Transfer, that company's enterprise search technology won't tie all of Microsoft's search products into one neat package.

The $1.2 billion purchase of Fast by Microsoft gives the Redmond company a lot of technologies beyond Fast's enterprise search solutions. That line of products gives Microsoft another weapon to use against Google, IBM, and other search vendors.

A Gartner brief on the Fast deal said those who are waiting for Microsoft to get their new purchase into the business product line will need to hang on for a while:

Microsoft indicated that the Live Search and desktop search products are unlikely to convert to Fast technology soon. Consequently, like its large rivals, Microsoft has a broad selection of search products to support. Enterprises would benefit more from a single, linearly scalable product, applicable across all cases - which, however, no vendor currently offers. Federating search is a more reasonable strategy and will remain dominant for the foreseeable future.

Gartner believes other enterprise search companies, like Vivisimo and Autonomy, could be acquisition bait for other firms. We won't be surprised if Oracle's Larry Ellison decides his business software empire could use one more acquisition, and makes a play for one of these companies.