Search engine company AltaVista Friday announced it has cut 25% of its workforce and is quitting the media portal business. The moves represent a return by the company to its core search engine business in hopes of ramping up its profitability.
As well as the job cuts, AltaVista has finished an organizational restructuring exercise; its California operations in Irvine and San Mateo are now consolidated in its Palo Alto headquarters, the company said in a statement. AltaVista also has condensed its four business divisions into a single entity. With these steps in place, the vendor hopes that AltaVista North America will turn a profit in the company's financial quarter due to end Jan. 31, 2001.
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"While many of these business decisions have been difficult, we are now in a position to unleash our search expertise with a clear, singular focus to penetrate every layer of the search market for consumers and businesses," AltaVista CEO and President Rod Schrock said in the statement.
AltaVista has major plans to invest heavily in 'Net search technology. Such investments include ramping up its outlay on the vertical search arena, notably AltaVista's Shopping.com information service, according to the company statement. AltaVista also plans to invest in what it terms a third-generation search service which will be capable of incorporating into a search query users' interests and the context of the query.
Additionally, the vendor has aggressive plans to grow its AltaVista Search Software Enterprise sales and support organization four-fold by the end of the present fiscal year and to form an Information Marketing Services organization offering in-context marketing services to content providers.
AltaVista also will invest in expanding its international operations to over 35 countries during the current fiscal year due to close July 31.
The company will launch the first of the 35 new language-specific Web sites next week with a search site for Denmark. This will be AltaVista's eighth country-specific Web site launched outside of the U.S. this year. Over 55% of AltaVista's 65 million monthly users come from outside of North America, the company said in the statement.
AltaVista is still licking its wounds after a failed attempt in the U.K. to launch flat-rate unmetered 'Net access service. AltaVista's U.K. division announced the departure of its managing director and a refocusing on its Net search business late last month.
CMGI, AltaVista's parent company, supports the search engine vendor in its efforts. "We're confident that AltaVista's decision to reinforce its strategic focus on search, in tandem with its investments to help increase market share and expedite its timeline to profitability, will significantly accelerate our goal to make AltaVista the leading search portal for both consumers and enterprises," CMGI Chairman and CEO David Wetherell said in a statement.
AltaVista, in Palo Alto, is at www.altavista.com/.
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