If any companies are to come out of the Internet economy unscathed it is those
that have built
the net -- Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO - news), Lucent Technologies Inc.
(NYSE:LU -
news) and others whose customers are online businesses, analysts said.
''The infrastructure companies are continuing to benefit from very strong growth
in electronic
commerce,'' Dain Rauscher Wessels' Stephen Sigmond said in a telephone
interview, in contrast
to Web retailers, who may face difficulties matching their holiday-fueled fourth
quarter reports.
''There doesn't appear much of a seasonal downtrend in the first quarter,'' he
said.
Late Thursday, for example, Inktomi, a provider of Web directory software,
reported fiscal
second quarter revenues up 323 percent. But its net loss declined only slightly to
$4.6 million
from $4.8 million, amid aggressive expansion plans.
Analysts said intranets and extranets - networks inside a company and those that
link it with
partners - are experiencing tremendous growth. And as online commerce heats
up, companies
are looking for products that channel Internet customers to their sites and keep
them there.....
|
