Microsoft confirms FAST Search on Linux and UNIX is DEAD

FAST ESP on non-Windows platforms was doomed from the moment Microsoft acquired FAST. The blog entry Microsoft Enterprise Search Blog : Innovation on Linux and UNIX confirms it:

With our 2010 products scheduled for release in a few months, we’ve just started to plan for our next wave of products. As a part of that planning process, we have decided that in order to deliver more innovation per release in the future, the 2010 products will be the last to include a search core that runs on Linux and UNIX.

Five years 'mainstream' support for FAST ESP 5.3 and then five more years of 'extended' support.