Software maker Inktomi Corp. Tuesday released the latest version of its
Traffic Server®, but with a twist — the revised caching product
supports the much ballyhooed Linux operating system.
The original product, licensed by such clients such as America Online Inc.,
Excite@Home and Merrill Lynch, was designed to reduce massive congestion
over the Internet and increase network efficiency. Already impressive for
its ability to scale beyond a terabyte of data, Traffic Server 4.0 features
even more processing power than its predecessors as well as increased
security measures.
The product upgrade is a price/performance one-two combination for companies
that have adopted Linux, an increasingly popular operating environment.
Ed Haslam, chief strategist, Network Products Division at Inktomi, said the
development broadens his firm’s reach in an enterprise market that is
quickly evolving.
“Supporting the widest range of platforms and data formats, Traffic Server
software is optimized for both enterprises and service providers seeking to
reduce bandwidth requirements, accelerate network performance and deploy a
variety of edge services,” Haslam said.
Such a promising product announcement as Tuesday’s inclusion of Linux would
seem to be icing on the cake for Inktomi’s stock performance. But its very
niche has made it susceptible to the same lumping other tech stocks have
been taking from leery investors.
Despite reporting pro forma earnings of 7 cents per share as opposed to
analyst estimates of 5 cents per share, Inktomi’s stock treaded perilously
near its 52-week-low of $21, selling for $24.25. Sales for Inktomi also
sailed to 78.6 million from $27.1 million with the addition of customers.
Earnings for fiscal year 2001 ballooned to 29 cents per share up from fiscal
year 2000’s 10 cents per share.
Inktomi, who claims it owns 50 percent of the caching product market in
addition to hosting one of the hottest search engines in the high-tech
sector, should be in good position going forward in spite of its flagging
stock price.
Just last week AT&T WorldNet tapped Inktomi as its commerce service provider
for Market Square, the newly redesigned online shopping service. These
services now use the Inktomi Commerce Engine and provide AT&T WorldNet
Service customers with access to millions of products and shopping tools
for an easier, more complete online buying experience.
But adding Linux to the Traffic Server’s already impressive phalanx of
operating systems, including Solaris, Windows 2000, HP-UX, DEC, Irix and
others, shows that Inktomi is dedicated to open-source standards, similar to
the way IBM Corp. has readily embraced the technology for its eServers.
