FAST Introduces Full-Featured OEM Enterprise Search SolutionFAST Introduces Full-Featured OEM Enterprise Search Solution

Fast Search & Transfer, a developer of enterprise search and real-time alerting technologies, has announced FAST InStream, an OEM enterprise search solution developed specifically for independent software vendors (ISVs). Based upon FAST's powerful Enterprise Search Platform, FAST InStream enables ISVs to empower their users, extend and strengthen their applications' functionality, and accelerate their competitive advantage.

FAST InStream is designed to increase the value of enterprise applications and boost ROI for the ISV's customers by extending the power of FAST ESP within OEM environments. Supporting both structured and unstructured data, FAST InStream provides unique value across all types of software applications, including enterprise portals, content and document management systems, customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, business intelligence (BI) suites and applications, and storage and archiving solutions.

"FAST's accelerating growth in the alliances sector has been driven by our focus on creating an embeddable solution that focuses on the needs of our partners. The introduction of FAST InStream supports our strategic direction to deliver innovative search solutions through an extended network of partners," said Ali Riaz, FAST's chief operating officer. "As other vendors realign their enterprise search business models and expand product portfolios away from search, they inherently create channel conflict with key OEM customers. In contrast, FAST InStream and the FAST Channels infrastructure have been developed specifically to meet the unique technical and support requirements of ISVs."

FAST's open and modular architecture provides ISVs flexibility when selecting and deploying search solutions - from specialized search and alerting applications to complete multilingual enterprise search platforms which support 77 languages. FAST InStream has been designed to support OEM readiness through characteristics such as:

"The advanced functionalities of search software are beginning to be incorporated in new intelligent applications across a broad range of industries and business processes," commented Hadley Reynolds, VP & Director of Research at Delphi Group, Boston, MA. "This trend to advanced search functionality is transforming the traditional OEM relationship from a passive licensing function to an active partnership in addressing new business requirements. The InStream application from FAST offers ISVs a number of facilitators that should help them speed delivery of business value in intelligent applications."

FAST InStream has been architected expressly to meet both the technical and business requirements of leading ISVs. FAST has taken into consideration the needs of the different users that interact with OEM solutions - product managers, sales, developers, and the ISV's end-users - and has fine-tuned FAST InStream to provide user-specific benefits including accelerated time-to-market, well-documented integration and migration tools, incremental revenue opportunities for sales, competitive differentiation, ease of use for developers and end-users, improved end-user TCO, and lower development costs.