Fast team to join Microsoft

A team from enterprise search engine Fast will join Microsoft Gulf after the software giant signed a $1.2billion (Dh4.4bn) acquisition deal for the Norwegian company. Microsoft made the acquisition offer on January 4 when it gave a value to the fully diluted equity of Fast.

Oslo-based Fast's board of directors encouraged shareholders to accept the offer. It was finalised on Tuesday.

"We are pleased to have the talented team from Fast joining us in the Middle East," said Patrick Beeharry, Server and Product Marketing Manager for SharePoint at Microsoft Middle East and Africa. "Together, we aim to deliver better technologies that will make enterprise search a ubiquitous tool, which is central to how people find and use information.

"We believe that enterprise search is becoming an indispensable tool to businesses of all sizes

Neil Garner, General Manager for Fast, Middle East, said: "The combination of Microsoft and Fast gives customers a new choice – a single vendor with solutions that span the full range of technological needs."