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By Polly Raymond, 31 August 2000 00:20

NEWS AltaVista's embarrassing decision to pull out of the unmetered net access market received surprise backing from industry analysts today. Acting UK MD Stephanie Himoff - who took the helm after Andy Mitchell resigned over the net access fiasco - stated yesterday that the company will now focus exclusively on web search and content. The statement drew widespread applause from analysts. "AltaVista should stick to what it's good at - it's a content provider not a service provider," said Dixon Jones, managing director of internet marketing consultancy, Receptional.com. Daniel Bieler, internet analyst at Nomura, added: "The worst that happened was the MD made a stupid mistake in public, but consumers at large are not so concerned about the story so that they will avoid its search engine for ever." Earlier this month Mitchell admitted to misleading customers and his boss. In an open letter to AltaVista CEO, Rod Schrock, he wrote: "I have made mistakes throughout this episode, especially in terms of my poor communication with you, and I apologise for any confusion or inconvenience." However, Receptional.com's Jones said AltaVista may even benefit in the long run from the fiasco, highlighting a trend that has show that even bad publicity can be good publicity in the internet industry. However, Andy Tanner-Smith, analyst at Frost & Sullivan added a note of caution. "People are going to associate AltaVista with lying for a while. They should stop blaming BT and start rebuilding their brand," he said. Stephanie Himoff joined AltaVista six months ago from CMP Media, where she was head of business development.