 | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Nasdaq: INKT | |
| Founded | January 1996; 29 years ago (1996-01)[1] |
| Founder | Eric Brewer[1] Paul Gauthier[1] |
| Fate | Acquired byYahoo! |
| Headquarters | Foster City, California[1] |
Key people | David C. Peterschmidt[2] (Chairman &CEO) |
| Revenue |  $112 million (2002) |
| -$500 million (2002) | |
| Total assets | $145 million (2002) |
| Total equity | $46 million (2002) |
Number of employees | 200 (November 2002) |
| Footnotes / references [3] | |
Inktomi Corporation was an AmericanInternet service provider (ISP) software developer based inFoster City, California. Customers includedMicrosoft,HotBot,Amazon.com,eBay, andWalmart.[3]
The company developedTraffic Server, aproxy serverweb cache forWorld Wide Web traffic and on-demandstreaming media whichtranscoded images down to a smaller size for users ofdial-up Internet access. Traffic Server was deployed by several large ISPs includingAOL.[4]
In 2003, after the bursting of thedot-com bubble, the company was acquired byYahoo! for $241 million.
The company's name, pronounced "INK-tuh-me", was derived from aLakota legend about the trickster spiderIktomi, known for his ability to outsmart larger adversaries.[1] The tri-color nested cube logo was created by Tom Lamar in 1996.
Inktomi was founded in January 1996 byUniversity of California, Berkeley professorEric Brewer and graduate student Paul Gauthier at the University of California, Berkeley. The company was initially founded based on theweb search engine that was developed at the university.[1]HotBot was the first search engine that made use of Inktomi's search technology.[5]
In June 1998, the company raised $36 million in aninitial public offering.[6] Its success in making HotBot the top rated search engine led to Microsoft, Yahoo! and Disney all partnering with Inktomi.[7]
In September 1998, the company acquired C2B Technologies for $95 million in stock, adding shopping engine technology to its portfolio.[8]
In November 1998, the company raised additional capital at a 688% premium to its IPO price five months earlier.[9]
In March 1999, CEO David Peterschmidt said that Inktomi would become an "arms merchant" to a growing number ofcontent delivery network service providers.[10] Inktomi received revenue based on a percentage of sales and/or apay per click model.
In April 1999, the company acquired Impulse Buy Network, adding 400 merchants to its shopping engine.[11]
In November 1999, the company acquired Webspective, which developed technology forcontent management across a host of distributed servers to be used inload balancing, for $106 million in stock.[12]
In March 2000, the company's stock peaked at a price of $241 per share.[13]
In August 2000, the company acquired Ultraseek Server fromThe Walt Disney Company'sGo.com.[14]
In September 2000, the company acquired FastForward Networks, which developed software for the distribution of live streaming media over the Internet using "app-level" multicast technology, for $1.3 billion in stock.[15]
In December 2000, the company acquired the Content Bridge Business Unit from Adero, a content delivery network, which had formed the Content Bridge Alliance with Inktomi and other ISPs, hosting providers and IP transport providers in August 2000.[16][17]
An article written byDanny Sullivan forSearch Engine Watch on October 1, 2001, revealed that Inktomi accidentally allowed the public to access its database of spam websites, which contained over one million of such sites, through a search result on competing search engineAllTheWeb.[18][19][20] The database was found by Brett Tabke, who ran the Search Engine World website.[20]
In July 2001, the company acquired eScene Networks, which developed software that provided an integrated workflow for the management and publishing of video content.[21]
In 2002, after the burst of thedot-com bubble, the company was restructured by Keyur Patel who joined Inktomi as investor, and senior vice president, strategy, marketing and technology.[22]
His restructuring led to the sale of the Ultraseek Server product (renamed Inktomi Enterprise Search) to Verity in late 2002 and the sale of the rest of the company toYahoo!'sYahoo! Search for $1.63 per share, or $241 million, completed on March 19, 2003.[23][24]
In 2006, the technology behind the Inktomi Proxy Server was acquired byWebsense, which was modified and included in the Websense Security Gateway.
In 2009, Yahoo! donated the Traffic Server technology to theApache Software Foundation.[25]
