Alta Vista did do enterprise search for a while. I remember in 2003-5 we had a large company choosing between Alta Vista and a Google appliance, the two player

Alta Vista did do enterprise search for a while. I remember in 2003-5 we had a large company choosing between Alta Vista and a Google appliance, the two players at the time. We were pushing them to go Google but they went Alta Vista. Worked decently well though, good search and decent API, the Google appliance was more black box at the time and Alta Vista was kinda flexible/customizable. So they had that. Also Alta Vista Babel Fish was one of the first good translation services.