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ALTAVISTA SEARCH IN MAJOR WORLDWIDE EXPANSION -- ‘MIRROR' SITES PLANNED FOR SCANDINAVIA AND AUSTRALIA ...Telia TeleCom AB of Sweden and Telstra of Australia to Become First Affiliates of the AltaVista WorldWide Network... MAYNARD, Mass., August 20, 1996 -- Digital Equipment Corporation today took a major step in establishing a worldwide network of `mirror' sites for AltaVista, with the announcement of plans to create regional Affiliate sites in northern Europe and Australia/New Zealand. The first two Affiliates of the AltaVista WorldWide Network, Telia TeleCom AB of Sweden and Telstra/Yellow Pages of Australia, have signed letters of intent to establish local AltaVista sites that will provide users with faster access and quicker response to their Internet search queries. The AltaVista site in Scandinavia, to be located on the Internet at http://www.internet.telia.com, will primarily target Internet users in Scandinavia, the Baltics, Poland, Germany and Benelux. The AltaVista site in Australia, at http://www.altavista.yellowpages.com.au, will target users in Australia and New Zealand. Both sites are planned to be operational in October, and Telia and Telstra/Yellow Pages will sell advertising space on their regional sites. When complete, the AltaVista WorldWide Network will consist of up to a dozen sites in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and Latin America, managed by Affiliate partners in each country. Affiliates will adapt the AltaVista search service to their local markets by translating the user interface and help pages into local languages. "With our planned rapid expansion and growth of the AltaVista WorldWide Network, we will offer far more users access to the service, and provide higher quality performance," said Ilene H. Lang, vice president of Digital's Internet Software Business Unit. "Both of our partners have invested significant resources into building a powerful infrastructure for the Internet, and we are proud to have them as our first AltaVista Affiliates." "Accurate search results are becoming more and more important as the Internet grows. As AltaVista Search is one of the most attractive services in the global network, our partnership with Digital will be an important part of Telia's Internet business," said Tomas Duffy, general manager for Telia TeleCom AB. "Along with our new network, Telia Internet, we will offer the capacity needed for delivering fast search results for all users in northern Europe." "AltaVista Search is one of the most attractive services in the global network," said Bob Copp, national multimedia manager for Telstra/Yellow Pages. "Internet users will be able to navigate around the Net at an unprecedented level of speed and performance, finding businesses through the yellow pages and telephone numbers through the white pages. Yellow Pages and AltaVista will be the bridge joining millions of Internet users and our 300,000 customers." Today, Digital's data center in Palo Alto, Calif. processes all queries to the AltaVista Search Service, located at http://altavista.digital.com. Responding to the rapid growth of Internet users from outside the United States, Digital is aggressively implementing plans to mirror the search service by establishing the AltaVista WorldWide Network. Each Affiliate will use the identical search index, providing identical results to queries around the world. AltaVista software solutions from Digital provide high performance Internet connectivity to help cyberworkers quickly find useful information, easily communicate and collaborate over secure virtual networks. The AltaVista family of products includes Private eXtensions, a search solution that is an extension from the AltaVista public search service on the Internet for finding information in corporate intranets, workgroups or on an individual's PC. Further information on AltaVista software solutions is available on the Worldwide Web at http://altavista.software.digital.com. Digital Equipment Corporation is the world's leader in open client/server solutions from personal computing to integrated worldwide information systems. Digital's Intel and Alpha platforms, storage, networking, software and services, together with industry-focused solutions from business partners, help organizations compete and win in today's global marketplace.
Note to Editors: Digital, the Digital logo and AltaVista are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation.
CORP/97/372
  
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