Inktomi Corporation Story

Inktomi was founded in 1996 by Joe Cowan, Bob Davis, and Eric Brewer.

The company's initial goal was to develop a search engine that could crawl the web and index its content.

Inktomi's search engine technology was innovative for its time, using a combination of algorithms and human editors to rank web pages.

This approach allowed Inktomi to provide more accurate and relevant search results.

Inktomi's search engine was first used by Yahoo! in 1998, and later by other major search engines and websites.

The company's technology played a significant role in shaping the early days of the internet.

Here's an interesting read: Wikia Search

Inktomi was founded in January 1996 by University of California, Berkeley professor Eric Brewer and graduate student Paul Gauthier. They developed a web search engine that would later power HotBot.

Eric Brewer remained Inktomi's chief scientist, and Gauthier was its chief technology officer. In 1997, the company moved to San Mateo, and then later established its corporate headquarters in Foster City.

Inktomi's Traffic Server began beta testing in 1997, aiming to eliminate bottlenecks and redundant traffic on the Internet and corporate intranets. The traffic servers were based on network caching technology that created a local repository of requested information.

In June 1998, Inktomi went public, raising $36 million in an initial public offering. Its success led to partnerships with Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Disney.

Here's a list of some of Inktomi's key acquisitions:

Inktomi continued to expand its e-commerce capabilities in 1999, acquiring C2B Technologies and ImpulseBuy.Net, and upgrading its Traffic Server to version 3.0.

Inktomi Corp was founded in 1996 by Eric A. Brewer and Paul Gauthier.

The company quickly gained momentum, and by 1998, Inktomi had secured a leading position among search engine technology providers, with annual sales reaching $223.5 million.

Inktomi's partner and customer base included major players like America Online Inc., Ameritech, Cisco Systems, Compaq Computer Corp., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., Nextel Communications, and Yahoo! Inc.

Inktomi developed its Traffic Server, software that uses caching technology to speed up the delivery of content on the Web.

By the time the firm went public in June 1998, it had expanded into Europe and Asia, and Inktomi's Traffic Server began running on Intel Corp.'s systems in a deal that included Intel's purchase of a small stake in the firm.

AOL also tapped into Traffic Server to manage data flow throughout its network, and Yahoo! teamed up with Inktomi and began using the firm's search technology on its site in July 1998, replacing AltaVista as the default search engine.

Take a look at this: Yahoo Search

In 1999, Inktomi began its move into e-commerce software solutions with the acquisition of C2B Technologies for about $90 million in stock. This acquisition helped Inktomi develop shopping search capabilities for customers like Yahoo!.

Inktomi's shopping agent covered 170 merchants in 12 categories, or 460,000 products in all. Merchants included online retailers, auction sites, online classified ads, and local merchants.

A fresh viewpoint: Juno Online Services

The C2B engine also included product descriptions and ratings from third-party content providers like Consumer’s Digest. This added depth to Inktomi's shopping search engine.

Inktomi expanded its e-commerce capabilities with the acquisition of ImpulseBuy.Net for $110 million in stock in April 1999. ImpulseBuy provided a database and other tools for merchants to enter their data.

By the end of 1999, Inktomi's shopping engine had grown to cover 350 merchants. It was made available to European Internet portals.

Inktomi upgraded its traffic server and released version 3.0 in mid-1999. This new version added support for two new operating systems, Windows NT and Free BSD.

The new Traffic Server 3.0 also included a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that allowed third-party providers to add value-added services.

Inktomi's early years were marked by rapid growth and innovation. The company raised $36 million in an initial public offering in June 1998, which turned out to be the hottest IPO of the year.

In 1998, Inktomi's customer base began to diversify, with Wired Digital accounting for approximately 59% of the company's revenue, followed by Microsoft at 20%. The company also gained $14 million in private financing through equity investments from Intel and Oak Investment Partners.

By the end of 1998, Inktomi had become the leading caching provider with a one-third market share, according to the Internet Research Group.

Inktomi was founded in February 1996 by Eric Brewer, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and Paul Gauthier, one of his graduate students.

The company's name is inspired by a mythical Plains Indian spider known for its cunning rather than brute force.

Inktomi's early success can be attributed to its innovative approach to search technology, which allowed it to search all 50 million pages on the web in 1996.

This was made possible by the company's Audience 1 software, which could customize web pages and advertisements according to the searcher's type of browser.

Inktomi's search engine, HotBot, was a joint venture with HotWired and was the first application to use the company's Audience 1 software.

In 1997, Inktomi began beta testing its traffic servers, which aimed to eliminate bottlenecks and redundant traffic on the internet and corporate intranets.

The traffic servers were based on network caching technology that created a local repository of requested information, making it easier for multiple users to access data quickly.

Inktomi's traffic servers were released later in 1997 and were initially targeted at internet service providers, network backbone providers, and business enterprises.

The company's traffic servers were introduced at a time when redundant traffic over the internet was estimated to be between 40 to 80 percent.

Inktomi's partnership with Microsoft in 1997 was a significant milestone for the company, as it would use Inktomi's traffic server and search engine technology in the Microsoft Network (MSN) in 1998.

Additional reading: Tunisian Internet Agency

In 1998, Inktomi was diversifying its customer base, and the company made plans to go public. It reported a loss of $8.7 million on revenue of $5.8 million for fiscal 1997.

Wired Digital accounted for approximately 79 percent of Inktomi's total revenue in 1997, with NTT accounting for another 13 percent. America Online and Digex Inc. became licensees of Inktomi's Traffic Server caching software and would begin using it in their networks in the second half of 1998.

Inktomi gained $14 million in private financing through equity investments from Intel and venture capital firm Oak Investment Partners. The company also entered into technology partnerships with Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and Intel.

By the end of 1998, Inktomi was the leading caching provider with a one-third market share, according to the Internet Research Group. Inktomi's search engine technology became the preferred search engine at Yahoo! in May 1998.

Inktomi's June 1998 initial public offering turned out to be the hottest IPO of the year, raising an estimated $36 million on the sale of two million shares. Shares opened on the NASDAQ at $30 and closed the day at $36.

HotBot version 5.0, released in mid-1998, marked a shift from Unix to Windows NT. The new version featured a new interface as well as a change in server infrastructure, designed to increase usability and offer new features.

Inktomi's growth was fueled by its innovative approach to search technology. The company's early success was largely due to its ability to index a large portion of the web.

Inktomi's revenue grew from $10 million in 1996 to $100 million in 1998. This rapid expansion was a testament to the company's innovative approach to search technology.

Inktomi's search engine was used by several major online companies, including Yahoo!, Altavista, and Lycos. Inktomi's technology played a key role in these companies' success.

Inktomi's acquisition by Yahoo! in 2003 marked a significant milestone in the company's history. The acquisition provided Inktomi with the resources it needed to continue innovating and expanding its search technology.

Inktomi's technology continued to improve, with the company's search engine indexing over 2 billion web pages by 2003. This level of indexing was a significant achievement and helped establish Inktomi as a leader in the search technology industry.

Inktomi's key events in 2001 were marked by significant developments in its search engine technology and business operations.

The company announced its Inktomi Search Everywhere solution at the beginning of the year, which integrated its web, custom, site, and enterprise search products.

Inktomi also overhauled its search engine software using enterprise-level XML, enhanced its web search service with more comprehensive search results, and implemented a distributed crawling architecture that scanned the web more frequently.

In May 2001, Inktomi introduced a pay-for-placement program called Index Connect, which allowed participants to submit meta information about multimedia and other files.

The company expanded its content distribution services with the acquisition of streaming-media vendor eScene Networks in July 2001, and its first product from the acquisition was called Inktomi Media Publisher.

Inktomi's financial performance in 2001 was challenging, with the company reporting a net loss of $296.5 million on revenue of $198.6 million.

In 2000, Inktomi's market capitalization plummeted by 99.9% over the course of a year and a half, from $25 billion to $250 million.

This drastic decline can be attributed to Google's rise to prominence. Google controlled the front-end, allowing them to render results quickly, whereas Inktomi provided results via API, causing latency.

Inktomi didn't have snippets or caching, which made their results less user-friendly. They claimed their crawling cycle was shorter than Google's, so caching wasn't necessary.

In contrast, Google's algorithmically-generated abstracts were often useless, requiring users to click on a result to get the information they needed.

Discover more: Google Code Search

In February 2001, Inktomi introduced Traffic Server 4.0.

This new version marked a significant milestone by extending the Traffic Server Platform to the Linux operating system for the first time.

The release of Traffic Server 4.0 brought extra processing power and significantly faster performance.

In 2001, the economy was experiencing a slowdown, which had a significant impact on Inktomi's expansion and capitalization plans.

Inktomi's workforce was cut back, and its stock price plummeted to new lows during the year.

The company reported a net loss of $296.5 million on revenue of $198.6 million for fiscal 2001 ending September 30.

Much of the net loss was due to one-time charges and amortization.

Inktomi's pro forma loss for the year was $191.5 million, which excluded certain items such as noncash employee stock compensation and restructuring costs.

The company ended the year with $213.5 million in cash and short-term investments, which would help it weather the economic storm.

CEO David Peterschmidt expected the company to return to profitability in 2002.

Inktomi was founded in January 1996 by University of California, Berkeley professor Eric Brewer and graduate student Paul Gauthier.

The company was initially founded based on the web search engine that was developed at the university.

Inktomi was a key player in the search engine market, but also one that was little known, as it operated 'behind the scenes' without having a search facility under its own brand.

It first appeared in September 1995 and was initially a pioneer of online search techniques.

Inktomi claimed to have the largest web index of more than 1.3 million documents on the World Wide Web when it was launched.

The project was initially funded by the US government's Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Inktomi removed the direct interface to its search engine from the web, opting instead to operate as a provider of search for other web portals.

A major coup came with the agreement to power Yahoo!'s supplementary search results.

The company grew quickly, offering a variety of web search, e-commerce and enterprise search products.

Inktomi suffered a series of setbacks and business realignments, so that it moved to just focus purely on search technologies.

In 2000 Inktomi lost their Yahoo! contract to Google.

Inktomi was also the first major search engine to launch a paid inclusion service, whereby websites could submit pages on a subscription basis in return for regular and frequent re-indexing.

The company's acquisition by Yahoo at the start of 2003 heralded a new dawn for this pioneering search tool.

Inktomi expanded its search engine technology to provide a robust and scalable platform for other companies to use.

This expansion helped Inktomi become a leading provider of search engine technology.

Inktomi's search engine technology was used by several well-known companies, including Yahoo! and Altavista.

These partnerships helped Inktomi's search engine index grow to over 250 million pages.

Inktomi's expansion also led to the development of new products and services, including Inktomi's own search engine, Inktomi Search.

This search engine provided users with a comprehensive and accurate search experience.

The company's expansion efforts paid off, with Inktomi's revenue increasing significantly in the late 1990s.

Inktomi's revenue growth was driven by its partnerships with major companies and the development of new products.