The mass of servers filling AltaVista’s Palo-Alto, California, laboratory, were not originally intended as the infrastructure for a new Internet business. Network Systems Laboratory director, Brian Reid, is proud that he refused to install a ‘floating’ floor to hid the web of communications cables. "I wanted everything to be out in the open", he proudly said a week ago. But, at AltaVista many things are hidden from the naked eye, among other reasons because in the Internet world, changes are so rapid that even the most daring program can be out of date in days.
One of them is the fascinating, and ambitious translation program. AltaVista has recently started offering document translation capabilities in Latinic languages. Digital recently purchased Chinese and Japanese translation technology, and Paul Flaherty, the man who invented AltaVista, promises that soon AltaVista will supply a translation service from English to Hebrew.
Flaherty says this capability has led to the development of a new business model: "We will sit ‘behind the scenes’ of the various local search engines operating all over the world. In every country there will be a local organization, that is in connected to the local market and clients, and it will supply them with the services received from us. At the same time, data bases will be set up around the world, (already a ‘mirror’ site operates in Canada), which will double our strength".
In fact, when the translation capability of AltaVista is completed, it will be able to replace most local search engines in all the different countries. It would be worthwhile for Israeli search engines to take this fact into account. Even so, in Flaherty’s eyes AltaVista is much more than a sophisticated search engine that may, or may not, take control of search engines on a worldwide scale.
"Search engines will, in the future, offer completely new services. These will include: context search, language based search, and search multi-media files. Also, link connecting services to sites will be available, there will be spelling services in various languages, and it will also be used to ensure the enforcement of copyrights on the Internet".
Originally AltaVista was set up to demonstrate Digital’s database’s potential, and capability to work with the Internet. The original idea came in May 1995. Three months later the capability was first demonstrated inside Digital, and in December 1995 the system was opened to the general public.
According to Flaherty, the reason Digital offers the AltaVista service to the public is tied up to the variety of new services they can now offer through this new technology. The numbers using AltaVista now come to some 90 million accesses per day, which, according to Digital, is 54% of all use of the larger search engines.
It is a perfect research tool, and today AltaVista operates as a profitable business. One of the most impressive examples of the commercial use of this technology has been effected on the FBI archives. Digital connected the engine to the organization’s Oracle data base. The engine scanned the archives, catalogued every document, and is now used by the police to find data needed in their investigations. When a document is required, it can be retrieved in nine seconds, compared to the 22 hours required before the system had been installed.
If Flaherty’s ideas seem bold, Brian Reid, the strategist and director of Digital’s Network Systems Laboratory in Palo Alto, California, believes the technology has an even more audacious future. "It will completely change the way people organize information. Digital is currently developing AltaVista based software, to be installed on PC’s and servers. It will enable location and collation of information on the computer using completely new methods, and will change the way we use E-mail. It is a new paradigm in the way people deal with data".
The laboratory developed AltaVista’s technology, and has expanded it for the new and exciting future. Among other things, it is developing the "Millicent" system which is designed to allow electronic transactions of fractions cents, and the future protocol IP V6, which will, according to Reid, open the Internet for its real destiny: "A comprehensive platform for all the communication services, starting with data transmission, data collection, and electronic mail, and including a perfect replacement for every other form of electronic media: radio, TV, phone and entertainment products that haven’t even been invented yet".
Is the research only done by engineers?
"No, the focus of our ideas is a meeting of technology and social behavior. More than half our time is spent meeting clients to find out what they do, and want to do, on the Internet. This includes meeting high school students. I employ a saleswoman I occasionally send out to sell all sorts of products. Not in order to sell them, but because people tell her things they don’t tell me. She helps us identify new trends.
"We also employ an artist. She sees things in a different way, and helps form the relationship between the incoming new technology, and the market. For instance when "Shockwave" technology appeared, we had to find out if it would be strong or not. We let her work with the program. After a few days she came to us, and said it was difficult to work with,
uncomfortable. In her view it would not catch on in the market. She could spot a trend without a technical education, and without being hypnotized by the technology. I suggested Digital not focus on ‘Shockwave".
Published by Israel's Business Arena February 17, 1998