I got an interesting e-mail from a very smart systems engineer the other day alerting me to the fact that Microsoft had put in a takeover bid for FAST. EMC should counter, he said. And from a Documentum professional's point of view, he may have a point. After all, FAST is the current search engine for Documentum. Grant it, it's a plug-in. and though switching it out might be less of a PIA than was Verity, what benefits will implementing substitute Autonomy bring to EMC customers?

Though many believe that it's a coincidence that Microsoft and EMC made their announcements almost simultaneously, I wonder. Autonomy was hurting at year's end and I doubt that  EMC's Mr. Tucci, Microsoft's Jeff Raikes, Oracle's Mr.Ellison, or even the boys at IBM and Google failed to take notice; rumors have it that it wasn't only Microsoft that made a bid.

Most of the press is talking about the impact Microsoft's purchase of FAST has on Google, specifically when it comes to enterprise search. "How popular is a document "doesn't matter inside a corporate intranet," says Microsoft's Raikes, "where you have to look at the relevance algorithm to help the business user. That's what FAST has."

Independent search analyst Stephen Arnold said this to Computerworld: "Behind the firewall search' has to be able to generate useful results when there aren't indicators like the number of times a document is clicked on or viewed. As you may know, Google's Web search system uses these cues to determine relevancy. In an organization, a very important piece of information may have zero or very low accesses. In a patent matter, a 'behind the firewall search' system must be able to pinpoint that piece of information because it may be the difference between a successful legal resolution and a costly misstep."

Google insists its search technology algorithms are made up of numerous factors, not on page views alone. They, like Microsoft, want to own Enterprise Search.

Some technology analysts suspect that the reason Microsoft offered to pay so much ($1.2 billion- 42 percent premium over the current market cap) for FAST is because once it's integrated into MOSS, it will enable MOSS to provide complex, multi-repository enterprise search scenarios that it can't handle at the moment.

Technology soothsayers predict two other rather interesting things (none of these substantiated). First, that Microsoft is gearing up for MOSS to replace the Windows operating system. And two, that Google will extend its offer from storing user content on its hard drives to storing enterprise content on its hard drives. "No way! It's not safe!" is what I'm thinking about right now. But I'm sure if that's Google's plan, they've got it covered.

One other thought. Sharepoint does talk to Documentum, does it not? And the Google Search Appliance connects to EMC repositories. Did these facts play at all on Mr. Tucci's plan not to overpay for FAST? Write me, backchannel or front, let me know what you're thinking.