AltaVista is dead. Here’s why it’s so hard to compete with Google. (washingtonpost.com)

AltaVista was really neglected by DEC, and in fact they were at such a low point that many early Google employees came directly from AltaVista. And DEC was a mess at the time because they were sold to Compaq. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista