Europe's Largest Government Portal Deploys FAST ESP for Improved Site Search
Oslo, Norway (ots/PRNewswire)
- Germany's Bund.de Selects FAST for its Flexibility, Support of Multiple Languages, and Ability to Scale with Future Portal Services and Government Content
Fast Search & Transfer(TM) (FAST(TM)), the leading developer of enterprise search and real-time alerting technologies, announced today that Germany's central e-government portal site, bund.de (www.bund.de), has significantly improved its site search capabilities with the deployment of FAST ESP(TM), FAST's Enterprise Search Platform technology. sd&m, a subsidiary of Cap Gemini which won the bund.de project, positioned FAST as its preferred search partner.
As part of the German government's online initiative, powerful search capabilities were required to offer the public a faster and friendlier way to access the most relevant information from all the different federal government agencies. By integrating the Site Search capabilities of FAST ESP, the bund.de portal site now offers users the ability to more easily access over 4.3 million government digital files currently available to the public in a wide variety of structured and unstructured formats. The scalability of the FAST ESP architecture also played a key role in the German government's decision to expand the amount of information available from more than 440 federal administrative institutions and over 380 services through the bund.de portal.
"bund.de is the cornerstone of the German e-government initiative, and as search is so integral to the navigation of the site, it was vital that we partnered with one of the leading technology providers," said Dr. Jürgen Hensen, President of the Bundesverwaltungsamt. "With our deployment of FAST's search solution, we have been able to make the bund.de a gateway for our citizens to directly access the public administration's services and information. FAST's powerful search technology is also helping us to position anew the portal's brand name 'bund.de - administration online' on the internet's information market according to our motto 'one portal - many government agencies - all contents'. It is our objective to save customer-agencies a lot of administrative paperwork by offering and processing an ever increasing number of online services and information. Through the use of a common publication platform with the cooperation of all government agencies the overall amount of work can be reduced while the agencies themselves are able to reach internet users more easily."
FAST ESP is not only the search interface on bund.de, but is also designed to function as the central navigation and organizational mechanism for this rich, dynamic and diverse e-government site. In addition to offering powerful and user-friendly search, a main feature of the portal is a comprehensive, e-directory that guides users to the information and services they need. Contextual navigation within the directory offers suggested links to related content and other features.
"bund.de is similar in nature to the FirstGov.gov portal in the United States, where our search solutions are also deployed," commented John M. Lervik, FAST's chief executive officer. "Both projects have offered the challenge of presenting the most accurate information from massive collections of content in a variety of formats from an assortment of diverse agencies. FAST has achieved great success with both of these government applications, and we are committed in providing bund.de users with the same rich search experience they are experiencing now as the amount of information offered by the German government increases."
FAST has transformed 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 bund.de
Since CeBIT 2001 the way to the electronic services and information portfolios of the German Federal Administration is via the central Internet portal www.bund.de. The aim of the portal is to render all e-government services accessible via www.bund.de. When all Federal Government services are available online in 2005 they are to be completely searchable on the portal. The public agencies can input their information and services via the portal publisher at the Federal Office of Administration (Bundesverwaltungsamt) or directly web-based via the distributed content management system (Government Site Builder), publicize job adverts, invitations to tender and auctions or publish newsletters. 150 public agencies already look after their portal content themselves. Since the portal's relaunch in May 2005 all information is structured user-friendly and addressed to three target groups, citizens, enterprises as well as public administration and institutions.
The information offered can be tapped through different channels. Who wants a general information only would best search through the index list A-Z. The captions "spheres of life" (citizens), "business areas" (enterprises) or "fields of action" (administration and institutions) offer individual target groups an alternative access to information and relevant data. bund.de is widely used: it is clicked on about 2.5 million times each month.
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 more than 2,000 global customers and partners, including America Online (AOL), AT&T, Cardinal Health, CareerBuilder.com, Chordiant, CIGNA, CNET, Dell, Factiva, Fidelity Investments, Findexa, FirstGov.gov (GSA), IBM, Knight Ridder, LexisNexis, Overture, 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. For further information about FAST, please visit www.fastsearch.com.
(c) 2005 Fast Search & Transfer ASA - Fast Search & Transfer, FAST, FAST ESP, FAST Data Search, FAST Marketrac, FAST AdVisor, FAST InStream, FAST ImPulse, FAST Search Best Practices, FAST SBP, FAST ProPublish, FAST mSearch 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.
Contact:
For more information, please contact: Fast Search & Transfer, Peter
Gorman (U.S.), +1-781-304-2495, pr@fastsearch.com; Carine Zeier
(Europe), +47-23-01-13-47, +47-48-01-13-47 (Mobile)