FAST Announces Center for Search Innovation; Search Industry Visionary Hadley Reynolds to Serve as Center's Director

25/07/2006 - 10:30

Fast Search & Transfer(TM) (FAST(TM)), the leading
developer of enterprise search technologies and solutions, today
announced the creation of the FAST Center for Search Innovation. The
Center will provide research programs, thought leadership content, and
exclusive knowledge exchange opportunities to executives in the
corporate, government, and academic communities. Hadley Reynolds,
former senior vice president and director of research at Delphi Group,
will lead the new Center.
The Center for Search Innovation builds upon the success of FAST's
unique Search Best Practices consulting offerings, which includes
sponsorship of more than 200 workshops with FAST customers, partners,
and prospects. The new Center offers a centralized resource for
catalyzing the development of intellectual capital, methods, and best
practices that leading organizations can leverage to take advantage of
the expanding business uses of enterprise search. The outcomes
generated by the Center's work will help FAST and its customers
cultivate new management approaches and technology applications to
meet the needs of global markets.
Hadley Reynolds joins FAST as vice president and director of the
Center for Search Innovation. Under the direction of Reynolds, the
Center will operate as a virtual global team that includes members of
FAST's R&D and Search Best Practices organizations, as well as
implementation management leaders, industry experts, and partners. The
Center's programs will engage an advisory board of luminaries from
industry, government, and academia.
"Hadley has a remarkable record in developing and communicating
research-based insights around the business uses of search. He has a
strong track record as a visionary and a catalyst for business-driven
innovation and his work consistently identifies emerging market
directions and areas of technology innovation," said Bjorn Olstad, CTO
of FAST. "This is a fantastic opportunity for FAST to extend his
expertise to our customers and partners, and the market at large."
Reynolds has more than 26 years of experience as a senior
operational and strategy executive in the software industry. During
his 12 years at Delphi Group, Reynolds was responsible for research
and consulting programs within the areas of search business impact,
content management, and information architecture. His role as a search
industry visionary and commentator is evidenced by the many research
reports and white papers, numerous bylined articles in top technology
publications, and frequent quotations in national business periodicals
including the Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, and the
New York Times. Before joining Delphi, Reynolds had a distinguished
career in product development, marketing, planning and strategy
development at Project Software & Development, a leading project
management software applications firm.
"FAST has made a unique commitment to raising the level of
industry knowledge about what constitutes successful enterprise search
practices," stated Reynolds. "The Center for Search Innovation will
further this commitment by focusing on search-based business
innovation for consumers, business professionals, analysts, and all
those who now use search as a primary avenue of information access and
intelligence."

About FAST

FAST is the leading developer of enterprise search technologies
and solutions that are behind the scenes at the world's best known
companies with the most demanding search problems. FAST's flexible and
scalable enterprise search platform (FAST ESP) elevates the search
capabilities of enterprise customers and connects people to the
relevant information they seek regardless of medium. This drives
revenues and reduces total cost of ownership by effectively leveraging
IT infrastructure. FAST's solutions are used by more than 2,600 global
customers and partners, including America Online (AOL), Cardinal
Health, CareerBuilder.com, Chordiant, CIGNA, CNET, Computer
Associates, Dell, EMC Documentum, Factiva, Fidelity Investments,
Findexa, IBM, Knight Ridder, LexisNexis, Merrill Lynch, Rakuten, Reed
Elsevier, Reuters, Sensis, Stellent, Tenet Healthcare, Thomas
Industrial Networks, T-Online, US Army, Virgilio (Telecom Italia),
Vodafone, and Wanadoo.
FAST is headquartered in Norway and is publicly traded under the
ticker symbol 'FAST' on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The FAST Group
operates globally with presence in Europe, the United States, Asia
Pacific, Australia, South America, and the Middle East and Africa. For
further information about FAST, please visit www.fastsearch.com.