BOSTON - Digital Equipment Corp. says it will release "super spider" software called Alta Vista for searching and indexing information on the Internet's World Wide Web.
"Finding a cyber needle in an ever-growing cyber haystack has long been a dream of Web users," said Sam Fuller, vice president of corporate research at Digital. "This technology is a major step in that direction."
The Alta Vista software creates and dispatches a brood of spiders that crawl electronically through the World Wide Web, searching out key words. It can help businesses instantly by locating information on markets, customers and competitors.
While about 20 companies already offer so-called spider services, Digital said it has taken the technology further by using 64-bit Alpha computers and advanced software and networking technology to search more quickly and accurately.
Industry analysts see Alta Vista as a showcase technology that also rationalizes the need for 64-bit computing.
"It is important to the company because it shows the power of both the Alpha 64-bit hardware and Digital's search software," said Greg Cline, an analyst with Business Research Group, a Cambridge, Mass. market research firm.
"It is a showcase application that could show a significant advance in Internet surfing technology," said Cline, adding that Digital claims its spider is 100 times faster than competitors'.
Alta Vista, which means "high view" in Spanish, was created by Digital's Corporate Research Group in Palo Alto, California .
The Maynard, Mass.-based Digital said it has found and indexed more information than any other existing spider service, creating an index of more than 8 billion words for 16.5 million of the World Wide Web's 30 million-plus pages of text on about 200,000 Web sites.
The Internet comprises 50,000 networks in 90 countries. A Web site, or home page, is a publicly available file stored on a computer attached to one of these networks.
Digital plans to offer public use of Alta Vista for free at its site, which is http://www.altavista.digital.com.
Fuller said Digital will use the Alta Vista Web site to get market information on how people use spiders for future product or service offerings.