Courtesy of Helpinout.
Pfeiffer criticizes Compaq's AltaVista
sale
By Laura Rohde
InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 12:22 PM PT, Nov 3, 1999
Eckhard Pfeiffer, Compaq's ex-chief executive officer and current member of the board for
Intershop Communications, said his former employer made a huge mistake in selling its stake
in AltaVista last June.
"I do not know what the reasoning of the board was in selling AltaVisa, but the company
gave away a major presence and a major capability that would have given Compaq a major
place in the Internet/e-commerce market," Pfeiffer said during an interview Wednesday.
Compaq had planned to take AltaVista public after spinning off the Web portal last January,
but instead changed course and sold its 83 percent stake in AltaVista to CMGI last June.
Compaq had originally acquired AltaVista when it bought Digital Equipment under Pfeiffer's
stewardship.
Officials at Compaq, including new CEO Michael Capellas, were publicly touting the deal
with CMGI as recently as Tuesday. Speaking at the Gartner Group's European
Symposium/ITxpo '99, Capellas said that the terms of the deal allowed Compaq the first
right of refusal of technologies developed within CMGI-affiliated companies.
Pfeiffer resigned from Compaq last April after eight years as the company's CEO. Pfeiffer's
exit is generally regarded as being forced by Compaq after a poor first-quarter performance
that Compaq's Chairman Ben Rosen called "disappointing and unacceptable." Pfeiffer was
appointed in September to the board of directors at Intershop, which sells software designed
to help companies do business online.
"I wasn't interested in being a CEO again," Pfeiffer said.
Pfeiffer, however, is also a member of the board of directors of General Motors, Hughes
Electronics, and Bell Atlantic, and serves on the advisory board of Deutsche Bank. He is
also on the boards of various cultural and educational institutions.
Compaq Computer Corp., in Houston, can be reached at www.compaq |
