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Technology Stocks : AltaVista Company (ALTA) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: fut_trade who wrote (65)	8/9/2000 10:53:05 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Respond to of 110

"This agreement is a major step forward in accelerating our path to profitability by allowing AltaVista to directly serve our advertising partners," said Rod Schrock, president and chief executive officer, AltaVista. internetnews.com AltaVista, DoubleClick Restructure Contract By Josh Schonwald For years, one of the biggest questions about DoubleClick concerned the possibility of its losing AltaVista as a client. Back in 1998, after all, the portal accounted for 26.9 percent of the advertising giant's business. And then, when AltaVista was acquired by CMGI -- which had its own substantial advertising assets -- the question became when, not if, DoubleClick would lose AltaVista. This week, the two companies came a little closer to answering that question, restructuring the terms of the agreement under which DoubleClick provides services to the portal. Under the new agreement, AltaVista has extended its contract to use DoubleClick's "DART for Publishers" ad serving technology through 2004. The majority of advertising served on AltaVista will use DART through 2002. In 2003, at least half of all of AltaVista's ads will be served through DART. AltaVista will assume majority responsibility for ad serving thereafter. Originally, the agreement between the two companies was set to expire in December 2001. Meanwhile, AltaVista will slowly be taking over more of the ad sales responsibilities. The old agreement called for the company to gradually take over the accounts of 200 large US advertisers over the year 2000 -- accumulating thirty more accounts every few months. DoubleClick will continue to represent most of AltaVista's international markets on an "exclusive third party basis" through December 31, 2001, but AltaVista will gradually be taking over those accounts, as well. Beginning with their first restructuring in November of 1999, DoubleClick and AltaVista have been working out the details of how to cede full responsibility for advertising. Although, in its early stages of development, AltaVista needed the DoubleClick relationship, it would no, understandably, rather take more control of its destiny by controlling advertising sales in house. This second restructuring simply extends the period of that hand-over and extends AltaVista's commitment to continue using the DART technology -- giving DoubleClick, and AltaVista, a softer landing. In 1999, DoubleClick had reduced its dependence on AltaVista, and the portal accounted for only 10.8 percent of its revenues. "This agreement is a major step forward in accelerating our path to profitability by allowing AltaVista to directly serve our advertising partners," said Rod Schrock, president and chief executive officer, AltaVista.

To: fut_trade who wrote (65)	8/21/2000 6:46:34 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110

Under very curious circumstances, ALTA backs away from unmetered UK access: thestandard.com August 21, 2000, 11:19 AM PDT AltaVista U.K.: No Unmetered Access The company's heavily touted flat rate Internet access plan is withdrawn before ever attracting a customer. By Polly Sprenger LONDON — After weeks of silence, and furious hounding by the U.K. press, AltaVista admitted Monday that its unmetered access product was dead in the water. The company said Monday that its flat-rate Internet access deal, which prompted a storm of price cutting by British Internet access providers when it was announced earlier this year, was "being put on hold." AltaVista U.K. CEO Andy Mitchell blamed British Telecom, saying BT hadn't offered a competitive enough wholesale package to ISPs. Mitchell said in an interview Monday that despite claims by AltaVista's representatives that the company would be servicing some 90,000 customers by the end of July, the service was never rolled out to a single customer. The move comes less than two months after the product was allegedly launched on June 30. AltaVista had pledged to roll out the flat rate access to 250,000 customers across Britain, connecting some 90,000 customer per month. Mysteriously, although AltaVista said that actual customers had used the service, they refused to provide customer testimonials, prompting a nationwide manhunt on the part of several media outlets for any AltaVista users. As recently as last week, customers who attempted to register for the AltaVista service were told that to avoid congestion problems on the nonexistent service, customers were being held in a queue, and given an Internet account in a "managed" rollout. "Where I've been remiss is in not communicating with our customers," Mitchell said. "I've made all the decisions at the right time, but I should have communicated to our customer base earlier on about the condition of the service. Ninety percent of the complaints we've had have been on lack of communication." The company was maintaining a code of silence until Monday, with representative telling any inquiring journalists that only Mitchell could comment. Mitchell was out of the country for the last three weeks, returning to the office Monday. During that time, he did not respond to journalists' queries via e-mail or phone, prompting criticism in the media for his reticence. Four national newspapers, a host of consumer magazines, and several British Web sites said that Altavista's Internet package was a fabrication. His public-relations agency expressed frustration at the incommunicado Mitchell, and an executive with the European arm of CMGI, AltaVista's parent company, declined to comment on the matter, saying only that doubts about Mitchell's responsiveness were "good questions." Mitchell said he decided three weeks ago to terminate the product, but despite the public outcry, didn't announce the news until Monday. ndustry leaders in London expressed disbelief at Mitchell's continued silence. "Senior executives need to be reachable, period," said Gehan Telwatte, European managing director for Hoovers Online. "No matter whether it is the old economy or the new economy, we live in an age where we expect accountability of a company's leadership; part of that accountability is being available when your company is in trouble. In the new economy, particularly for companies pushing connectivity products, it is unfortunate if a senior executive is not themselves connected." AltaVista's is only the latest in a string of canceled flat-rate access plans. Several other products from cable company NTL, ISP Lineone, and Virgin Net have been canceled or put in hold in recent weeks.