Overture to Acquire Web Search Unit of Fast Search & Transfer — FAST

Business Wire, Feb 25, 2003

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

PASADENA, Calif. & OSLO, Norway--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 25, 2003

In Combination with Planned Purchase of AltaVista, Overture is Now

Well-Positioned to Create the Next Generation of Internet Search

Overture Services, Inc. (Nasdaq:OVER), the world's leading provider of Pay-For-Performance search to Web sites across the Internet, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the Web search unit of Norway-based Fast Search & Transfer (OSE:FAST), a leading developer of search and real-time filtering technologies, for $70 million in cash, as well as a performance-based cash incentive payment of up to $30 million over three years. The deal is expected to close by April.

This acquisition, combined with Overture's previously announced plans to purchase the business of AltaVista Company, substantially bolsters Overture's leadership in commercial search and positions the company to create the most powerful and comprehensive search capability on the Internet. The companies' combined technologies and deep development expertise will enable Overture to create the next generation of Internet search, guiding consumers to exactly the information they are seeking.

Through this combination, Overture expects to be at the forefront of the industry in offering a full suite of paid placement, paid inclusion and algorithmic Web search products and services for syndication to portals, ISPs and other search destination sites. At the same time, the company's 80,000 advertisers will benefit by gaining access to new products and sources of distribution that will drive additional customer leads.

Algorithmic search, in which a search engine crawls the Web and returns relevant results in response to users' queries, complements Overture's core paid placement business. By leveraging the algorithmic Web search technology of both FAST and AltaVista, the company will be able to provide three types of search offerings to its current and prospective distribution affiliates: Overture's paid placement product, a paid inclusion product and algorithmic search. The company said that it will offer its distribution affiliates any combination of these products, providing them with greater flexibility.

Businesses using paid inclusion pay a fee to have their Web pages frequently reviewed by a search engine's Web crawler for inclusion in its index, ensuring that the most dynamic content on their Web sites is incorporated. The company said it plans to further enhance the paid inclusion products currently offered by FAST and AltaVista and intends to provide its advertisers with the benefits of consolidated reporting, billing, and a single interface for campaign management for both paid placement and paid inclusion products.

"Search is in a rapid growth phase which we believe will continue for years to come," said Ted Meisel, Overture's president and chief executive officer. "Offering a broader, more complete range of products and services to our distribution network and advertisers will allow us to capitalize on that growth and build on the strong competitive advantages we already possess. Combining AltaVista and FAST's Web search business provides us with what we believe is the quickest and most cost effective path to market."

Founded in 1997, FAST is based in Oslo, Norway and has operations in the United States, Norway, Germany, the UK and Japan. The acquisition includes FAST Web Search(TM) algorithmic search, AlltheWeb.com(TM), and FAST PartnerSite(TM) paid inclusion services. FAST retains usage rights for intellectual property relating to its enterprise search technologies. FAST enterprise search technology is currently deployed to global customers such as CareerBuilder, Dell, FirstGov.gov (GSA), Freeserve, IBM and Reed Elsevier.

"The quality of Internet search is a key factor in determining consumer loyalty to a Web site, and today most sites fail to deliver information seekers with exactly what they are looking for on a consistent basis," said John Lervik, FAST's chief executive officer. "At FAST, we have worked hard to perfect world-class technology capable of closing the quality gap in search. The combination of Overture's and FAST's Web search business supports our focused strategy of delivering real-time information solutions for global customers."

FAST also possesses advanced linguistics capabilities in almost 50 languages and has experience operating technology teams in multiple locations around the world. These benefits will allow Overture's distribution affiliates to better serve their users' commercial and informational search needs, both in the U.S. and internationally. FAST has a significant international presence and relationships with some of Overture's key Web partners in the U.S. and overseas, including Terra Lycos, InfoSpace, T-Online and Freeserve.

The company said FAST's Web search unit adds technological capabilities that are complementary to both AltaVista's and Overture's core technologies. Accessing an index of more than 2.1 billion documents, FAST's search results are among the most relevant on the Web. FAST's flexible, extensible and highly scalable Web search architecture is complementary to AltaVista's capabilities, which include industry-leading text analysis, duplicate search listing removal, anti-spamming techniques, as well as advanced clustering approaches that improve search result relevance. This combination will allow Overture to create a next generation Web search platform to develop new products in a fast and efficient manner.