Conference gyro::internet_toolss

    When I talked to some researchers working on AltaVista last summer,
    they were working on this--Adobe was interested in seeing this happen.
    However I haven't heard anything to suggest it's live.
    
        erik

    I can't give a definite date but shortly.  It HIGH on the priority
    list.  Next major release sounds familiar.  I'm anxiously waiting also.
    
      Regards,
    

I would have provided a URL, but it'll probably change in the next few 
days.

Reading this, of course, leaves me confused. Does this mean that the public 
AltaVista and/or the internal AltaVista will begin to index PDF files -- or 
is this only for personal versions of AltaVista?

- Jim

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AltaVista ships latest version of search software 

By Carolyn A. April
InfoWorld Electric

Posted at 8:52 AM PT, May 6, 1997 

Digital's AltaVista Internet subsidiary on Tuesday unveiled the next
generation of its AltaVista Search software, with enhanced features that
extend information retrieval to more types and domains. 

The new version of AltaVista Search now indexes more than 200 different 
file formats on the Web, intranets, extranets, file servers, and local PC 
disks, including Microsoft Office, Adobe PDF, and PostScript documents, 
officials said.

The search family, which includes AltaVista Search Intranet eXtension 97, 
and AltaVista Search Personal eXtension 97, now for the first time supports 
Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer e-mail messages.

"We've extended search capabilities far beyond Web page indexing," said 
Ilene H. Lang, president and CEO of AltaVista Internet Software in 
Littleton, Mass.

In addition to beefing up the current software, AltaVista also added a new 
product to the mix: AltaVista Workgroup eXtension 97. This version of the 
software provides search and retrieval functions for information stored on 
a variety of file servers, including Windows NT, NetWare, and LAN Manager.

The entire product line uses the same super-spider technology as the 
AltaVista Search Public Service to crawl throughout all the Web servers in 
the enterprise, indexing words on every HTML page, text document, and many 
office-type documents, company officials said.

The AltaVista Search Developer's Kit, previously available only for Digital 
Unix, is now also available for NT. The toolkit, which includes a set of 
APIs to the AltaVista search index C library, coding examples, and 
documentation, allows developers to integrate AltaVista Search 97 with 
structured and non-structured databases, company officials said.

Pricing for the search software is as follows:

(@) AltaVista Search Intranet eXtension 97 on Windows NT, Digital Unix, and 
Solaris is priced from $15,995 to $65,999 for 250 users, depending on 
platform. A license for an additional 250 clients is $5,999, while an 
unlimited-user license is an additional $34,000;

(a) AltaVista Search Personal eXtension 97 is priced at $29.95 for a single 
user;

(b) AltaVista Search Workgroup eXtension 97 pricing will be announced in 
July; and

(c) AltaVista Search Developer's Kit 97 is priced from $49,999 to $99,999, 
depending on platform.

AltaVista Internet Software Inc., a subsidiary of Digital Equipment Corp., 
in Littleton, Mass., can be reached at 
http://www.altavista.software.digital.com/.

    Alta Vista can index files with no type but I could NOT figure out how to
    set up a default viewer to view them.  I was actually indexing my UNIX
    mail from the Win95.
    
    - Vikas

 I contacted the person who is maintaining the internal version of
 AltaVista today.  He's "in the process of planning to upgrade the internal
 search to the next release. It's expected to happen in the month of June." 

 This should enable the searching of internal PDF files.

 - Jim