Microsoft retreats FAST in enterprise search
The blog post from FAST CTO Bjorn Olstad was downright apologetic, nothing like the spin Microsoft is noted for.
Many of our customers run FAST ESP on Linux and UNIX today, and we recognize that our future focus on Windows means change.
Doesn't sound like change he believes in, does it?
Microsoft spent $1.2 billion on FAST just two years ago, and critics say many of those users are left stranded by its decision.
But that's not even approximately true. The Apache Foundation has two open source alternatives, Solr and Lucene. Paid support for both Solr and Lucene is available from Lucid Imagination.
Lucid is already bragging on its Web site that its customers include the White House, Netflix, and C|Net, from which ZDNet emerged. (CBS is now parent to both.) Not bad for an outfit that conjured up its first outside investment just last year. (Note: C|Net blogger Matt Asay is on Lucid's advisory board.)
On Lucid's blog, marketing guy David Fishman said the company is unsurprised by the Microsoft decision.
If even the FAST development team itself needed to drop everything to make FAST work on dot-net, how hard would it be for a FAST-on-Not-Windows customer?
Fishman was being polite in placing a picture of Claude Rains as Capt. Louis Renault in Casablanca on his blog post. ZDNet does not have to be polite. Hence, Nelson Muntz from The Simpsons.