Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) announced a definitive agreement to acquire the Publishing Applications Business Unit from NextPage, including the NXT, Folio, LivePublish and GetSmart product lines, as well as over 500 NextPage customers. NextPage’s document management service, Chrome, will remain with NextPage. The deal is expected to close later this month. FAST’s acquisition of NextPage’s Publishing Applications Business Unit and its customers will allow FAST to expand its global presence in the Publishing market, and accelerate the development of a new Search Derivative Application (SDA) for the Publishing sector based upon FAST’s Enterprise Search Platform, FAST ESP. As part of the agreement, FAST will assume 34 employees from NextPage, the majority of which are employed in the U.S. FAST will continue to offer full support and maintenance to NextPage customers. NextPage will receive US$6 million in cash and be eligible to receive performance-based payments up to a maximum of US$9 million over four years. The deal is expected to close later in September 2004. The revenues associated with the acquired NextPage Business Unit were in excess of US$6 million for the first eight months of 2004. www.nextpage.com, www.fastsearch.com