Related story: Message 7496761
Inktomi's shares were recently down 14 3/8, or 9.7%, at 133 7/8 on volume of 3.7 million, compared with a daily average of 939,900.
According to Inktomi's Peterschmidt, the company's search technology operations contributed 49% of its third-quarter revenue of $10.7 million.
Inktomi currently provides its search technology to 18 companies, including Microsoft. Other customers include Yahoo!; Lycos Inc.'s (LCOS) HotBot; America Online Inc.'s (AOL) ICQ service; Snap!, a joint venture of General Electric Co.'s (GE) NBC and CNET Inc. (CNET); Disney Co.'s (DIS) Disney Internet Guide; Geocities (GCTY); and Japan's Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. (NTT).
Goldman's Sood noted that Inktomi will have a major advantage over AltaVista in trying to attract customers for its search technology in the future since Compaq plans to build AltaVista into a full-service Internet "portal" - a site that Web surfers use as a gateway to the Internet.
This will put AltaVista in direct competition with its customers - Web networks like Microsoft's MSN. Inktomi, on the other hand, doesn't face such a conflict since it provides back-end search technology, but is not a full-blown Internet portal itself.
Peterschmidt expects Inktomi's search operations to grow about 20% sequentially in the quarters ahead. He added that since the portal market has already been pretty well saturated with search technology, Inktomi is trying to market its search services to other types of Web sites - including sites run by media companies, specialized Web properties and foreign sites.
The remaining 51% of Inktomi's revenue last quarter came from its "network caching" operations.
Internet service providers like AOL, PSINet Inc. (PSIX), Cable & Wireless PLC (CWP) and At Home Corp. (ATHM) license Inktomi's Traffic Server technology to redistribute and store frequently-used Web content on computers at "the edge" of their networks - meaning closer to points where users connect.
By doing this, Peterschmidt explained, ISPs are able to cut down telecommunications line charges and deliver information to their users much more quickly.
Inktomi is also developing a third business that will provide online shopping technology that can be used to locate goods for sale and product information on the Internet. This technology, which is currently being previewed on Geocities, SNAP and LookSmart, will be rolled out in the first half of 1999, Peterschmidt said.
Is WCTI capable of "network caching" just like Inktomi?
|
