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.
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