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To: The Duke of URL© who wrote (74063)	12/17/1999 9:37:00 PM
From: Captain Jack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec 17, 1999 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Following the path of competitors Yahoo Inc. and Excite, Silicon Valley search engine AltaVista Co. plans to go public. The IPO plans were revealed in a filing late Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission by AltaVista's parent investor CMGI Inc., which bought a majority share of the company four months ago. While the actual structure of the offering remained undisclosed, the company said the initial public offering -- sometime early next year -- will be led by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. The offering caps a year of great change at AltaVista. In January, Compaq Computer Corp. bought the company when it acquired AltaVista's parent, Digital Equipment Corp. Compaq later added other Web companies, notably Shopping.com and Zip2 Corp., to the AltaVista umbrella. In August, Compaq then turned around and sold 83 percent of AltaVista to CMGI for $1.9 billion. The Andover, Mass.-based CMGI has moved to make AltaVista a centerpiece of its numerous Internet properties, and had been widely expected to spin it off into a publicly traded company. While AltaVista has consistently been the most favored search engine in Europe, it ranks globally behind such competitors as Yahoo!, MSN, Netscape, Go, Lycos and Excite, according to Web rankings service Media Metrix. In an effort to build its brand, AltaVista launched an aggressive marketing campaign in late October. In late November, AltaVista bought the Raging Bull online financial community. Like many Internet companies, AltaVista has yet to make a profit. For the quarter ended Oct. 31, the company logged $52.6 million in revenue and recorded a $267.8 million net loss. Copyright 1999 Associated Press, All rights reserved