Fast buys AltaVista enterprise business

Fast Search & Transfer, a company that develops search technologies for corporate needs, announced Tuesday that it had acquired AltaVista?s enterprise search business for an undisclosed cash sum from Overture Services. As part of the deal, Fast, based in Oslo, Norway, said it also received more than 200 search customers from Overture.

Fast said it does not plan to integrate AltaVista?s enterprise search technology into its own data search systems. Instead, it will encourage AltaVista?s enterprise customers to migrate to Fast?s data search technologies. However, the company said it would continue to maintain and support current AltaVista enterprise search customers. Overture received the enterprise search business as part of its acquisition of AltaVista in April .