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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ada Marie who wrote (64038)	6/23/1999 9:27:00 PM
From: Elwood P. Dowd	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 97611

3 million dollars, if my memory serves me correctly. El

To: Ada Marie who wrote (64038)	6/24/1999 7:20:00 AM
From: hlpinout	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Morning Ada, Compaq Finally Gets Altavista.com (07/29/98, 8:22 p.m. ET) By John Borland, TechWeb Although final details may still need to be worked out, it appears Compaq's AltaVista site will finally get its coveted altavista.com domain name. News of the deal, which was pegged at more than $3 million by sources close to the talks, leaked out Tuesday. According to Compaq (company profile), the negotiations are unfinished, and the company refuses to confirm reports of the domain's sale. But officials at AltaVista Technology, the small Campbell, Calif.-based company that still owns the rights to the name, said an agreement to sell the name had been signed. "I can't talk about any of the details of the settlement," said Jack Marshall, president of AltaVista Technology. Marshall did say the agreement would end the court battle over the altavista.com name that has pitted him against Digital Equipment since 1996. The domain-name purchase is a critical one if Compaq plans to move ahead with its portal ambitions, analysts said. "In terms of buying a URL, outside of the price, this is a smart move for Compaq," said Ron Rappaport, an analyst with Zona Research. A portal is a site designed as a jumping-off point for the rest of the Web, aggregating content and user services such as chat and free e-mail. Companies like Yahoo and Excite have captured a vastly disproportionate share of the Web's advertising dollars by casting themselves in this mold, and AltaVista wants to follow suit. Compaq's AltaVista has already established a solid brand name online, but largely as a search engine, Rappaport said. The company clearly wants to catch up with the other portal players, and has added news, content "zones," and user services such as free e-mail services. But Compaq now needs to market the site with an easily remembered Web address. "They needed to secure that URL so that they could go ahead with the advertising and marketing that will turn them into a portal site," Rappaport said. "That next step could not have been taken with altavista.digital.com." Meanwhile, the $100 investment Marshall made in 1994 proved to be spent even more wisely than had he invested in Microsoft stock. The California entrepreneur is switching the focus of his company, he said Wednesday. Starting in August, he will open a free Web photo-album page, offering upload and hosting services for anyone who wants to put their digital photographs online. The service will be funded by ads and a gift store selling items from picture mugs to photo-frosted cookies, he said. The album-hosting service is already getting a trial run as part of a Disney promotional campaign for its A Bug's Life movie. Software for the service will be bundled by Hewlett-Packard, Polaroid, and several digital-camera manufacturers, Marshall said.