Microsoft News Tracker

Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch has the lowdown on the dirty financial laundry being aired from Fast Search and Transfer which Microsoft acquired in January and whose technology is scheduled to appear in SharePoint Server and SQL Server:

Even back in January when Microsoft agreed to pay $1.2 billion for enterprise search company Fast Search & Transfer, it was mired in an accounting scandal and trading in its stock had been suspended. Its aggressive accounting for phantom deals that never materialized earned it the moniker the “Enron of Norway.” But more sordid details keep coming out from some tenacious reporting by the Norwegian press.

The latest account comes in the June 28 issue of the Norwegian magazine Dagens Næringsliv. In an article (in Norwegian) by Trond Sundnes, Dagens Næringsliv, Gøran Skaalmo, the magazine details how the Norwegian company booked free software trials as revenues, and how its executives set up shell corporations for allegedly self-dealing purposes.
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According to the article, Fast had booked $50 million in fake revenue, $20 million in fictional contracts, and former top executives closely linked to CEO Markus Lervik siphoned off $6 million to shell companies they controlled. Lervik continues to lead the business and is currently the vice president for enterprise search at Microsoft.

Click through for all the details, but it looks like this one is going to need a whole lot of damage control. It also raises questions, perhaps unjustly, about the Fast Search & Transfer technologies themselves.

Fast Search & Transfer sounds like a generic attribute but in fact it is the name of Norwegian-based provider of enterprise search solutions and Microsoft wants it:

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Today Microsoft unveiled their enterprise search lineup for 2008:

Microsoft today announced Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express — a downloadable Enterprise Search product available at no charge that combines simplicity and ease of use with a powerful set of search features. Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express joins Microsoft’s Enterprise Search lineup, which is built on the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 platform.
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A release candidate is available today for customers to download and evaluate the product at http://www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch.

Additionally, we announced Microsoft Search Server 2008, a sister offering available through our volume licensing program that contains advanced deployment and scalability options.

Apparently both products are based on technology pulled out of SharePoint Server for Search 2007 which will be superceded when the two flavors of Search Server 2008 ship in the first half of 2008.

Last week Microsoft UK revealed a rather flashy looking search appliance based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search (MOSS07 for Search). Microsoft’s Mike Pallot elaborates:

The main announcement was that we in the UK have launched the first ever Microsoft based Search Appliance. SCAN Technologies have partnered with us to use their expertise and our technology to build on MOSS 07 and deliver a very simple to install, configure and deploy MOSS 07 based Search Appliance.

It’s not quite ready for prime time (Pallot asks those interested to contact him directly), but it is apparently coming this year:

Microsoft will launch its first search appliance this year, based on a relationship with UK-based Scan Computers. Scan’s Orange Spider Search is designed to let firms add in SharePoint Server capabilities in a four-step process.

Mike Pallot, Microsoft channel development manager for search, said, “We’re in the early stages but it’s a pre-built server that makes it easy to deploy SharePoint without IT assistance. It’s not a ploy to go head-to-head with the Google Search Appliance but it lets you deploy a familiar environment and link people search to CRM capabilities.”

The above makes it seem both more and less than one would expect. It’ll be interesting to see the full details on this puppy.

Microsoft today staged a rolling launch of Windows Vista, Office 2007, Exchange 2007 , and associated products starting in Sydney, Australia and wrapping around the world through Asia and Europe to Steve Ballmer in New York who is still speaking as I write. The launch event so far has been as devoid of excitement as expected, but the important thing is that Microsoft at long last got Vista out the door.

Update: For the sake of completeness, according to the press release linked above, the full set of products launched today was:

Products Released

An * below indicates the product is available now.

Client upgrades
• Windows Vista Business *
• Office Professional 2007 *
• Office Project Professional 2007 *
• Office Visio Professional 2007 *
• Office InfoPath 2007 *
• Office OneNote 2007 *
• Office Communicator 2007

Client enterprise editions
• Windows Vista Enterprise *
• Office Enterprise 2007 *

Server upgrades
• Exchange Server 2007 *
• Office SharePoint Server 2007*
• Office Project Server 2007 *
• Forefront Security for Exchange Server *
• Forefront Security for SharePoint *
• System Center Configuration Manager 2007

Server Enterprise editions
• Windows Rights Management Services *
• System Center Operations Manager Enterprise 2007
• Unified Messaging Services for Exchange *
• Excel and Forms Services for SharePoint *

New products
• Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance
• Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 *
• Office Forms Server 2007 *
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007*
• Office Communications Server 2007
• “Voice Call Management” for Office Communication Server 2007
• Office PerformancePoint Server 2007
• Forefront Client Security
• Office Sharepoint Server for Search 2007 *
• SQL Server 2005 Data Mining Add-ins for Office 2007
• System Center “Desktop”
• Office Groove Server 2007*
• Office Groove 2007 *
• Exchange Hosted Services*