Acting MD Stephanie Himoff said yesterday:
"From today, AltaVista is focusing on our
core business: internet search. Search is the second most popular
UK on-line activity, after e-mail. Our focus is to provide the best
service to enable British users find the information they need on
the internet."
AltaVista was the first major ISP to announce unmetered dial-up
internet access for a flat fee. However, it did so without first
agreeing all the terms of a wholesale package which it needed from
BT. The AltaVista Chief Executive claimed the company’s service had
users when in fact it had never been launched – although tens of
thousands had registered in the hope of using the service.
Pierre Paperon, President of AltaVista Europe said:
"Over the past seven months Andy Mitchell
built our UK business almost from scratch. We are very grateful for
all he has done to grow an excellent UK search service and a strong
organisation. The mistakes in our planned internet access service -
which we do acknowledge - probably made Andy's departure
inevitable, and we support his decision."
