DIGITAL'S 'SUPER SPIDER' BECOMES INTERNET'S FASTEST-GROWING SEARCH TOOL

In Less than a Month, Digital Equipment's Hot Technology Surges Past Two
Million Hits Daily

Company Considers Licensing, Advertising Offers...

MAYNARD, Mass., January 11, 1996 -- Within weeks of its introduction,
Digital Equipment Corporation's advanced "super spider" technology has
become the fastest-growing information search and indexing capability on
the Internet's World Wide Web, the company said today. Paralleling the
technology's phenomenal climb to more than two million "hits" or
transactions per day is the keen interest from leading Internet companies
seeking to negotiate business agreements.

"It has become clear that Digital has built the better 'cyber mousetrap'
for capturing all of the information on the World Wide Web," said Samuel
H. Fuller, vice president of Corporate Research. "Inquiries from firms
doing business on the Internet have risen on the same steep curve as user
interest in the technology. They are seeking to license the technology,
use it internally, or advertise products and services on its home page. We
will give careful consideration to all of these potential opportunities,"
he said, "before making final decisions in the coming months."

User Commentary

"Web users who have tried the Internet's first super spider software that
we code-named Alta Vista are astounded by its speed and comprehensive
response to their information queries," Fuller added.

Internet-savvy newspaper columnists have strongly recommended that readers
put the technology through its paces, as they have. "The results, I
promise, will blow you away," said David Plotnikoff, writing in the San
Jose Mercury News in the heart of Silicon Valley. "Digital Equipment
Corporation's Alta Vista is less than a week old, and it's already made
its way to the top of my hotlist," he added. Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
DoubleClick columnists Roger A. and Richard A. Grimes found Alta Vista
"...hands down the best search engine... and it's simple to use." Richard
also selected it for InfoNet's "Cool-Site-of-the-Day," which he maintains,
just days after it was officially launched. In his "Postcard from
Cyberspace" column in the Los Angeles Times, Daniel Akst called Alta Vista
"...my favorite new Internet search engine...Searches are surprisingly
fast and reasonably accurate, and search results are presented quite
coherently."

From England, Jack Schofield, computer editor of The Guardian comments,
"...Alta Vista is my favourite word-search engine....It is the power and
speed of the searching that makes it great. It can do searches nothing
else can manage."

Many Web users have acted on these recommendations and shared their
excitement about Alta Vista in Newsgroups and via E-mail. Some examples:

"I tried it and was boggled by its speed and depth...This site blows the
socks off all other Web search engines," said Nathan Sovik, Ph.D.,
University of Michigan. Phenix Management International's Al Doran of
North York, Ontario, comments that Alta Vista "...may be the hot site of
the year! You will find just about anything you are looking for with this
search engine." And Dr. Tony Mace of Management Accountancy & Computer
Education in Sussex, UK, said, "It's very good for picking up obscure
pages which other search engines miss."

Digital is continuing its public test of the technology. Web users can
access Digital's super spider and provide feedback through Digital's
Internet address at:

                     http://altavista.digital.com

Researchers at Digital's Palo Alto facility have documented daily usage
since the technology's introduction on December 15, when 300,000 hits were
logged. The number doubled on Monday, December 18. By Wednesday, December
20, it had jumped to 1.5 million. Following the holiday period, the number
reached more than two million daily, beginning January 4.

Quadrupled Capacity

The technology's super spider and super indexer employ next- generation
software and advanced networking, powered by Digital's top-of-the-line
AlphaServer 8400 system. The scalable hardware already has been upgraded
to quadruple its original capacity -- from two to eight processors, and
double the memory -- to keep pace with demand. AlphaServer 8400 systems
can be upgraded incrementally to 12 processors in a single system and as
many as 96 processors in a cluster of Alpha computers.

Most Comprehensive Search

Digital's super spider technology surpasses the limitations of current
information services by delivering the most complete, precise, and
up-to-date information of the Web's entire text. It conducts the most
comprehensive search of the entire Web orders of magnitude faster than
spiders used in conventional information search services. The super spider
creates and dispatches a "brood of spiders" that crawls the entire Web.
Second-generation scalable software simultaneously locates and indexes
text as it finds Web pages. A powerful search engine enables Web users to
conduct precise searches for specific information by looking for phrases,
specifying key words, using case-sensitive matches, and restricting
searches to titles or other parts of a document.

The super spider has crawled the Web at up to 2.5 million pages per day,
finding and indexing more information than any other spider or crawling
service. It is enroute to finding every page and indexing every word of
text on the Web.

Digital Equipment Corporation is the world's leader in open client/server
solutions from personal computing to integrated worldwide information
systems. Digital's scalable 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. Specific information on Digital's Alpha and Intel platforms,
storage, networking, software, and services is available on the Internet
and can be accessed through the Digital home page: 
http://www.digital.com
 
 =========================================================
 From the 'New Product News' Electronic News Service on...
 AOL (Keyword = New Products) and Delphi (GO COMP PROD)
 =========================================================
 This information was processed from data provided by the
 company/author mentioned. For additional details, please
 contact them directly at the address/phone# indicated.
 Trademarks are the property of their respective owners!
 =========================================================
 All submissions for this service should be addressed to:
 BAKER ENTERPRISES,  20 Ferro Dr,  Sewell, NJ  08080  USA
 Email:   rbakerpc@delphi.com   --or--   rbakerpc@aol.com
 =========================================================
