Convera Ties Up with Fast Search

September 12, 2008

I have to admit that I was surprised with this headline “Convera and Fast, a Microsoft Subsidiary Announce Extended Business Relationship.” You can read the story from MarketWatch here. (Note: this is a wacky url and I have a hunch the source will 404 unless you click in a timely manner.) After releasing its Web Part for SharePoint, I was expecting a tapering off in Fast Search & Transfer innovation. Was I surprised? Yes, a tie up between Convera (formerly Excalibur Technologies) and Microsoft’s enterprise search unit is news. Convera, like Fast Search, seems to have gone through a rough patch on the information superhighway. There was the marriage and divorce from Intel and the NBA several years ago. Then there was a decline in revenues. Finally, Convera exited the enterprise search business to focus on building vertical search engines for publishers. My recollection is that the company’s revenues continue to dog paddle. Fast, as you may know, is alleged to have made a math error with its financial reports in the 24 months prior to its sell out to Microsoft in April 2008 for $1.2 billion. I thought opposites attracted, and these companies seem to have some interesting similarities. I recall that Autonomy bought a chunk of Convera. Then Fast Search jumped in and bought another piece of Convera. There’s a history between Fast Search and Convera, and obviously the management teams of both companies get along swimmingly.

According to the write up that appeared on September 11, 2008:

Convera will integrate FAST ESP(TM) search capabilities into its hosted vertical search solution for publishers. Publishers will be able to configure and customize an integrated site search and vertical search solution using Convera’s Publisher Control Panel (PCP). Additionally, Convera will extend FAST AdMomentum across the Convera search platform for publishers. Customers of the Convera professional network would be able to leverage targeted search and contextual ad inventory supplied by Microsoft and distributed from the Convera platform.

I certainly hope this deal becomes a 1 + 1 = 3 for their respective stakeholders. Fast Search has faded to the background at Microsoft from my vantage point. Convera had, in all honesty, dropped completely off my radar. The Intel – NBA blow ups waved me off the company years ago. My take on this deal is that I am not sure it will generate significant revenue unless Convera has found a way to out Google Google. This seems unlikely to me. Agree? Disagree? Help me learn.

Stephen Arnold, September 12, 2008

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Business strategy, Microsoft, News, Online (general), Search

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.