FAST Expands Worldwide Operations with New Offices in Middle East, Asia and South America

NEEDHAM, Mass.'' 21 January 2005 '' Fast Search & Transferâ„¢ (FASTâ„¢), the leading developer of enterprise search and real-time alerting technologies, announces the recent establishment of new offices in Dubai, Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore and Rio de Janeiro. These offices were created to drive FAST's continued expansion into global markets and to provide the best possible local support to customers and resellers.

"Global demand for FAST's enterprise search solutions and the increased demand for unique Search Derivative Applications based on the FAST Enterprise Search Platform (FAST ESPâ„¢) has increased substantially over the past two years,'� said Ali I. Riaz, FAST's chief operating officer. "Integral to our strategy for 2005 is to meet that demand with new applications for a variety of markets, superior customer support and product development. Our new offices in the Middle East, Australia, Singapore and South America will enable us to meet these goals, as well as increase FAST's global market share.'�

The opening of these new facilities marks the expansion of FAST's operations in international markets, which already include a strong presence in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Each of the new offices will focus on building regional product distribution through partners, work directly with key strategic customers and have strong technical teams with in-depth knowledge about localization, customer support and education. As FAST continues to expand its global reach, it will take full advantage of its industry leading linguistics capabilities (ability to retrieve highly relevant information in 77 different languages) to market to multi-nationals and increase its support to every geographic region.

FAST continues to transform enterprise search from a powerful, yet narrowly perceived function, into an enterprise-wide strategic and tactical capability of pivotal importance. FAST ESP and FAST's portfolio of solutions and SDAs supply a complete information retrieval solution ideal for a growing number of key vertical markets and applications including e-Commerce and Internet Portals, Financial Services; Government; Life Sciences; Media and Publishing; and Telecom. For FAST, the search never stops.

ABOUT FAST
FAST creates the real-time search and filter technology solutions that are behind the scenes at the world's best known companies with the most demanding search problems. FAST's flexible and scalable integrated technology platform 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 powerful enterprise search technology solutions are used by a wide range of global customers and partners, including AT&T, Cardinal Health, CareerBuilder.com, Chordiant, CIGNA, CNET, Dell, Fidelity Investments, Findexa, FirstGov.gov (GSA), IBM, Knight Ridder, LexisNexis, Nordstrom, Overture, Rakuten, Reed Elsevier, Reuters, Sensis, 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, and Japan. Additionally, the FAST Group has business partners and customers in a number of other locations, such as Brazil, Canada and Australia. For further information about FAST, please visit www.fastsearch.com.

© 2005 Fast Search & Transfer ASA - Fast Search & Transfer, FAST, FAST ESP, FAST Data Search, FAST Marketrac, FAST AdVisor, FAST InStream, FAST ImPulse and the FAST four-colored logo are trademarks of Fast Search & Transfer ASA. All rights reserved. FAST disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.