FAST Expands Worldwide Operations With New Offices in Middle East, Asia and South America

Oslo, Norway (ots/PRNewswire) -

- Global Demand for the FAST Enterprise Search Platform Fuels
International Growth Strategy

OSLO, Norway, January 20 /PRNewswire/ --

Fast Search & Transfer(TM) (FAST(TM)), the leading developer of
enterprise search and real-time alerting technologies, announces the
recent establishment of new offices in Dubai, Sydney, Melbourne,
Singapore and Rio de Janeiro. These offices were created to drive
FAST's continued expansion into global markets and to provide the
best possible local support to customers and resellers.

"Global demand for FAST's enterprise search solutions and the
increased demand for unique Search Derivative Applications based on
the FAST Enterprise Search Platform (FAST ESP(TM)) has increased
substantially over the past two years," said Ali I. Riaz, FAST's
chief operating officer. "Integral to our strategy for 2005 is to
meet that demand with new applications for a variety of markets,
superior customer support and product development. Our new offices
in the Middle East, Australia, Singapore and South America will
enable us to meet these goals, as well as increase FAST's global
market share."

The opening of these new facilities marks the expansion of FAST's
operations in international markets, which already include a strong
presence in the US, Europe and Japan. Each of the new offices will
focus on building regional product distribution through partners,
work directly with key strategic customers and have strong technical
teams with in-depth knowledge about localisation, customer support
and education. As FAST continues to expand its global reach, it will
take full advantage of its industry leading linguistics capabilities
(ability to retrieve highly relevant information in 77 different
languages) to market to multi- nationals and increase its support to
every geographic region.

FAST continues to transform enterprise search from a powerful, yet
narrowly perceived function, into an enterprise-wide strategic and
tactical capability of pivotal importance. FAST ESP and FAST's
portfolio of solutions and SDAs supply a complete information
retrieval solution ideal for a growing number of key vertical
markets and applications including e- Commerce and Internet Portals,
Financial Services; Government; Life Sciences; Media and Publishing;
and Telecom. For FAST, the search never stops.

About FAST

FAST creates the real-time search and filter technology solutions
that are behind the scenes at the world's best known companies with
the most demanding search problems. FAST's flexible and scalable
integrated technology platform elevates the search capabilities of
enterprise customers and connects people to the relevant information
they seek regardless of medium. This drives revenues and reduces
total cost of ownership by effectively leveraging IT infrastructure.
FAST's powerful enterprise search technology solutions are used by a
wide range of global customers and partners, including AT&T,
Cardinal Health, CareerBuilder.com, Chordiant, CIGNA, CNET, Dell,
Fidelity Investments, Findexa, FirstGov.gov (GSA), IBM, Knight
Ridder, LexisNexis, Nordstrom, Overture, Rakuten, Reed Elsevier,
Reuters, Sensis, Tenet Healthcare, Thomas Industrial Networks, T-
Online, US Army, Virgilio (Telecom Italia), Vodafone, and Wanadoo.

FAST is headquartered in Norway and is publicly traded under the
ticker symbol 'FAST' on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The FAST Group
operates globally with presence in Europe, the United States, and
Japan. Additionally, the FAST Group has business partners and
customers in a number of other locations, such as Brazil, Canada and
Australia. For further information about FAST, please visit
www.fastsearch.com.

(c) 2005 Fast Search & Transfer ASA - Fast Search & Transfer,
FAST, FAST ESP, FAST Data Search, FAST Marketrac, FAST AdVisor, FAST
InStream, FAST ImPulse and the FAST four-colored logo are trademarks
of Fast Search & Transfer ASA. All rights reserved. FAST disclaims
any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. All other
trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their
respective owners.

http://hugin.info/134564/R/976639/143828.pdf

Rückfragehinweis:
Fast Search & Transfer, pr@fastsearch.com, Peter Gorman (US),
+1-781-304-2495, Carine Zeier (Europe), +47-23-01-13-47

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