FAST Search & Transfer is betting there’s a lot of folks tired of Google’s chokehold on the internet advertising market. The search provider is pitching to put you in control of your own Ad network. Translation: Quit paying third parties like Google and Yahoo.

The Norway-based company released news yesterday morning of AdMomentum, billed as an alternative to internet advertising’s big three - Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. IDC’s Sue Feldman commented on contextual advertising and described FAST’s Ad platform:

Online ad revenue drives the digital economy, and no one has a lock on that revenue stream today,” said Feldman, IDC’s Vice President for Search and Digital Marketplace Technologies. “Online advertising – particularly contextual advertising – continues to soar. IDC believes that large publishers and ad networks can seize a significant share of this revenue. FAST AdMomentum provides the infrastructure for publishers to manage and monetize their online content. It’s a digital marketplace in a box.

You’re probably thinking, big deal right? Nobody’s catching Google. Even if you’re right, think about how wide open the internet ad market is right now. The scramble for number two or even number five or six in market share is worth billions. I’m sure FAST has done the math.

But I’m thinking there’s more to this battle than just fighting for the big brand websites. What about FAST’s position with enterprise customers?

Some of the world’s largest companies use their technology (much of it behind the firewall) to enhance their information management strategies — the company clearly has a strong brand in that respect. The question is, who can expand the footprint of the enterprise customer first? Will it be Google with its search and bevy of web 2.0 apps or a company like FAST whose genealogy already has a decidedly enterprisey slant.

It seems like there’s plenty of customers who could help FAST chip away at Google’s AdSense. If ACME already has FAST infrastructure, why wouldn’t they pilot FAST? Wouldn’t it be an easy ROI to use an existing backend from FAST while ramping up your Ad resources?

I also think it’s a bit naive to think large organizations will be tied to one Ad platform. Someone mentioned how Google customers might threaten to employ FAST to get a better deal. Not sure it really matters. The smart companies will tailor their advertising strategies so precisely, they’ll quickly figure out Google and FAST can each serve their own purpose. One size fits all is dead.

And what about all the channel and OEM communities that companies like FAST have? To me, those are armies entering the enterprise through all sorts of other Trojan horses — back doors like this.

Speaking of back door entrances into the enterprise, it made me think of a comment I ran across (on Rubicon exec Michael Mace’s blog) from Robert Scoble a while back describing Google vs. Microsoft. Although the parallels may not be the same in scale, I think Scoble paints a scenario that can be played out for all sorts of David and Goliath matchups.

Google hasn’t made an impact on the enterprise yet. And I don’t see them challenging Microsoft or taking money off the Office team’s plate in the enterprise for the next two years. Further out, however, they are positioned to come in and take some business from Microsoft. The first thing Google will do is stop the growth of Microsoft Office. Small startups aren’t going to buy Office anymore, they’re going to use the free apps on the Internet. Is Google going to get Chevron to switch from Exchange? No. Not soon. What they are going to do is add new value that Microsoft can’t, like the Google calendar team showing me how to put my calendar on my blog. It’s really nice. Those kinds of things are what you’ll see enterprise companies start to use in little projects here and there. Google will sneak in the back door, just as Microsoft did 25 years ago with DOS and PCs.

So with the above in mind, what’s it gonna take for FAST to take real market share? Running your own Ad network will take some muscle.

Maybe I’ll have the chance to ask the FAST product managers this week in San Diego about  the platform’s complexity, but it’s not even that. It has more to do with an enterprise’s propensity to outsource all the functions related to web advertising. That’s a big reason so many companies look to AdSense, Panama, and Microsoft’s AdCenter. Outside of producing content, all the stuff related to development, payment, stats, etc., is handled effortlessly, maybe too effortlessly. We’ve gotten lazy and the big advertisers are profiting.

So, are we to the point where corporations are finally ready to act like real media companies? You have to think it’s just a matter of time before internal marketing and PR teams get tired of everyone reaching into the coffer.