Inktomi to power @Home search

Search technology firm Inktomi today said it has licensed its search engine and networking caching technologies to cable access provider @Home.

While other search engine companies have transformed into portals, Inktomi, which went public last month, is pushing to provide back-end technological solutions to the Net's players.

Toward that goal, the company has been aggressively marketing its products to various Net companies.

Other technology firms also have cashed in on the fight for Net traffic by providing their wares to several players. Email and home page technology firm WhoWhere, for example, announced earlier this month that it had signed on 10 new partners-- including heavyweights such as Barnes & Noble, Deja News, Individual Investor, and Women.com--bringing its roster up to 40. WhoWhere private-labels its services so that sites can incorporate community-building features without having to develop the technology themselves.

The strategy appears to be working for Inktomi, at least for now. Inktomi's stock has shot up along with other high-tech stocks and has more than doubled since its IPO.

In April, Inktomi announced two major deals: one with America Online and another with Digital Equipment, to provide them with caching software.

Inktomi also has been working for several months at developing a search engine for Microsoft.

Today's deal with @Home marks a new foray for Inktomi into the high-speed cable-access market.

"We're really excited to be working with a company like @Home," said Paul Gauthier, chief technology officer and cofounder of Inktomi. "They're the leader in high bandwidth and cable access marketplace."

Gauthier added that while Inktomi isn't necessarily setting out to license both of its key products to every company, the move fits in with its overall strategy to be "operating at every level of the network."

Inktomi's search engine will be incorporated into @Home's portal site, and its caching service will be deployed across the @Home network.