Alta Vista got acquired and sold over the years. First, Compaq, the personal computer rival to IBM, bought DEC in 1998 and with it the search engine. Then in 2002 Hewlett-Packard bought Compaq. But Alta Vista by then had lost its luster and was sold off to an online advertising search company, Overture Services. Overture soon was purchased by Yahoo. That was 2003. But it was the growth of Google that ultimately killed Alta Vista as it is killing Yahoo today. Now after 18 years the brand is being put to bed forever.
Some interesting stats to ponder in this Age of the Internet. When Alta Vista got started in 1995 it was processing 2.5 million search requests a day. Today Google handles 5.1 billion requests per day. How the world has changed in 18 years.
Alta Vista, may you rest in peace!
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