Altavista, one of the first search engines on the Internet, is to establish a multimillion European administration centre in Dublin and launch a dedicated Ireland-specific search engine. The company has decided to centralise the finance and sales functions for its European and international operations in Dublin and will begin recruiting next week.
The Dublin centre will employ 10-15 people initially, but is likely to grow rapidly as Altavisa expands its search engines throughout 30 countries worldwide over the next few months.
An IDA Ireland spokesman confirmed the agency was negotiating with Altavista and said an initial investment could lead to further projects. "We see this initial investment in Dublin as a starting point to secure one of the leading names in Internet technologies in the Republic, but we don't see it as the conclusion of their investment," he said.
Altavista established its European division in October 1999 and since then has launched country-specific search sites in eight countries, including Austria, Germany, Britain and France. The company also has international operations in India and Australia. The Irish search engine will index Ireland-specific sites and go head to head with existing search engines provided by Oceanfree.net, Eircom.net and Indigo.ie from Wednesday. The Irish expansion is part of a £25 million roll-out of nation-specific sites in 30 countries outside the US.
Altavista's website will initially be hosted from London but it is understood the company would consider moving its servers for the Irish site, and perhaps even its other European sites, to the Republic. "Right now we host everything out of London but as soon as the connectivity stabilises in Dublin we would consider hosting it from Ireland." an Altavista source in Britain said yesterday.
A decision to relocate its servers and hosting services from London would involve a massive investment in the Republic and give a further boost to Dublin's status as a premier e-business centre. The decision to invest in the Republic follows a difficult period for the search engine which postponed its proposed initial public offering six months ago due to stock market volatility. Last month the company announced it was cutting 225 staff and refocusing its business on its search engines rather than becoming a web portal.
But Altavista is still one of the most visited websites, according to the online ratings firm, Media Metrix. With headquarters in Palo Alto in the US, the company employs 675 staff worldwide.
