ASIANET: WORLD'S BIGGEST INTERNET SEARCH ENGINE GOES ONLINE

WORLD'S BIGGEST INTERNET SEARCH ENGINE GOES ONLINE

NEW FAST SEARCH INDEX HAS MORE THAN 200 MILLION WEB PAGES TODAY, ENTIRE WEB

In One Year; Unique Parallel Architecture Based on Dell Servers Delivers the

Fastest, Freshest and Most Relevant Search Results

BOSTON, Aug. 2 /PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ -- Fast Search & Transfer(TM) (FAST(TM)) -- developers of the industry's most comprehensive search technology for the Internet -- today announced FAST Search(TM), The World's Biggest Search Engine(TM), located at http://www.alltheweb.com . FAST is the first company to create a search engine with the ultimate goal of searching "All The Web, All The Time(TM)." FAST Search is the result of more than a decade of research into optimizing search algorithms and architectures, a project originally initiated at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim.

FAST Search currently includes more than 200 million unique URLs in its database, making its catalog almost twice the size of search engine reseller Inktomi(TM) and three to four times bigger than several popular search engines. FAST intends to resell FAST Search to major portals, search engines, ISPs, and content sites.

According to a study published in the July, 1999 issue of Nature(TM) magazine, search engine coverage of the Web has decreased substantially since December 1997, with no engine indexing more than 16% of the Web (estimated at approximately 800 million URLs as of July, 1999).

At 200 million URLs, the new FAST Search indexes more of the Web than any other search engine and in one year's time is expected to catalog the entire Internet -- and then to keep up with the growth of the Web from that point forward.

Architecture Description

The FAST Search architecture is based exclusively on high-performance Dell(R) PowerEdge(R) servers and Dell PowerVault(R) storage subsystems. These systems operate in parallel with each other to distribute user queries, search the document catalog, and spider the Web through dedicated computing and storage nodes.

A key design objective of the FAST Search architecture is to scale linearly in both query volume (number of searches) and catalog size (number of documents), enabling search to become an "organic application" that effectively keeps up with the growth of the Web. This "parallel server" approach of FAST Search differs markedly from the architectures of other major search engines, which typically use a small number of very large, expensive multiprocessor computers. These large systems do not cost-effectively scale with the growth of the Web, and as catalog sizes increase, they are further slowed by increased processing overhead and inefficiencies.

The parallel FAST Search architecture also delivers exceptional search speed -- a typical query on FAST Search races through all 200 million documents in less than 1 second. In addition, by using many systems working in parallel, FAST Search builds its document index in only 12 hours, a task that takes many search engines several days or even weeks to perform. The result is fresher information to web surfers on a more consistent basis.

Quotes

"Search engines have greatly improved communication, making an increasing amount of information efficiently accessible at no cost beyond that of web access," said Dr. Steve Lawrence, research scientist with NEC Research Institute, Inc (Princeton, NJ) and author of the Web size study published in Nature Magazine "However, typical search engines are limited in their coverage of the web, and in how quickly they can update their databases, which leads to valuable information being missed. By improving coverage and freshness, while also focusing on relevance ranking, FAST promises to improve access to information."

"The announcement by FAST sets a new benchmark in search engine size and coverage. Those looking for the ability to comprehensively search across the web should definitely consider trying All The Web," said Danny Sullivan, editor of Internet.com's SearchEngineWatch.com, a site devoted to search engines.

"Dell has teamed with FAST to build a next-generation search engine that can effectively scale with the explosive growth of the Internet," said Mike Lambert, senior vice president, Enterprise Systems Group. "FAST's highly advanced search engine technology, powered by Dell PowerEdge servers and PowerVault storage systems is proving to be one of the leading search solutions available anywhere."

"As the Web continues to experience explosive growth, most users mistakenly assume they are searching the entire Internet during a search engine query -- FAST Search will be the first search engine to actually make this a reality," said Espen Brodin, president and CEO of Fast Search & Transfer. "The importance of having a large catalog cannot be overstated -- most users typically don't look past the first one or two pages of search results. As a result, all search engines must rank sites by how 'relevant' they are to the user's query and put the best, most relevant sites up front. Smaller search engines will miss a number of web site 'gems' that would have been ranked in the first one or two pages -- if only the search engine had those sites in its catalog. The massive size of FAST Search allows it to find more of these highly rated gems and place them on the first or second page of search results, resulting in a better and more satisfying search experience."

About Fast Search & Transfer ASA

Fast Search & Transfer ASA (FAST) is a high-technology company that develops and markets advanced and innovative search and real-time filtering solutions for the Internet and corporate markets. The company performs research and development out of its corporate headquarters in Oslo, Norway, and in Trondheim, Norway, while sales, marketing, customer support, field engineering, and operations are run from the US headquarters in Boston, MA, and the San Francisco, CA, office. FAST's fully scalable cost-efficient search and filtering software and hardware ranges from highly specialized and targeted search engines to generic technology solutions for large corporations and Internet content providers. The products include the world's largest search engines for structured and non-structured text, high-capacity real-time content filters for instant personalized information delivery, and high-quality multimedia solutions for electronic commerce. FAST is traded on the OTC market in Oslo, Norway. For more information on FAST and its solutions, visit the FAST World Wide Web site at http://www.fast.no.