NextPage Sells Publishing Apps to Search Vendor

 
 
By Matthew Hicks  |  Posted 2004-09-01 Email Print this article Print
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Selling such publishing applications as NXT and Folio to FAST, NextPage is left to focus on launching a new document-management service.

NextPage Inc. is selling its portfolio of publishing applications to focus instead on a document-tracking service that it plans to launch later this year. Enterprise search vendor FAST Search & Transfer ASA has agreed to buy NextPages publishing applications business, including the technology, product lines and more than 500 customers, the companies announced on Wednesday. As part of the sale, FAST will acquire such applications as NXT, Folio, LivePublish and GetSmart that are being used by major publishers, accounting firms and financial services companies, FAST said. The Oslo, Norway, company also vowed to continue to provide support and maintenance for the applications.
FAST announced that it will pay NextPage $6 million in cash and that NextPage would be eligible for as much as another $9 million in performance-based payments over four years. The deal is expected to close by the end of September.
Meanwhile, NextPage, of Draper, Utah, will concentrate on its new document-management product called Chrome, its CEO, Darren Lee, said in a statement. NextPage publicly demonstrated Chrome in June and is testing it in more than 50 customer pilots. Chrome, 18 months in development, is a service that tracks versions of documents across e-mail attachments, hard drives and servers. For FAST, the addition of the publishing applications will help it develop further vertical search applications for its Enterprise Search Platform that launched in January. In particular, the acquisition will accelerate FASTs development of a publishing industry-specific search application, the company said. Check out eWEEK.coms Messaging & Collaboration Center at http://messaging.eweek.com for more on IM and other collaboration technologies.

Be sure to add our eWEEK.com messaging and collaboration news feed to your RSS newsreader or My Yahoo page

 
 
 
 
Matthew Hicks As an online reporter for eWEEK.com, Matt Hicks covers the fast-changing developments in Internet technologies. His coverage includes the growing field of Web conferencing software and services. With eight years as a business and technology journalist, Matt has gained insight into the market strategies of IT vendors as well as the needs of enterprise IT managers. He joined Ziff Davis in 1999 as a staff writer for the former Strategies section of eWEEK, where he wrote in-depth features about corporate strategies for e-business and enterprise software. In 2002, he moved to the News department at the magazine as a senior writer specializing in coverage of database software and enterprise networking. Later that year Matt started a yearlong fellowship in Washington, DC, after being awarded an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship for Journalist. As a fellow, he spent nine months working on policy issues, including technology policy, in for a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He rejoined Ziff Davis in August 2003 as a reporter dedicated to online coverage for eWEEK.com. Along with Web conferencing, he follows search engines, Web browsers, speech technology and the Internet domain-naming system.
 
 
 
 
 
Manage your Newsletters: Login   Register My Newsletters























 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rocket Fuel