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.