Inktomi Corp - Early History

Brewer, a University of California at Berkeley professor, and Gauthier, a graduate student there, established Inktomi in 1996 while working on Brewer's Ph.D. dissertation. The pair set out to prove that a cluster of desktop computers could be wired together to be as powerful and have the same data-processing capabilities as more expensive supercomputers. To test the theory, they developed search engine software that could sort through Web pages to retrieve information. Eyeing the research project as a lucrative business opportunity, Brewer and Gauthier exited the academic world.

In 1996, the pair sought out David Peterschmidt, CEO of data specialist firm Sybase, to manage the search engine startup. With six employees, Inktomi—named after a Native American word meaning cunning spider—secured its first customer in May, when it began providing the search engine technology for the HotBot Web site. Under the leadership of Peter-schmidt, the company also began to develop caching technology that would allow Internet Services Providers (ISPs) to speed up content delivery over the Web by storing frequently requested Web pages locally on their computers. In 1997, Inktomi began testing the software under the name Traffic Server.

By the time the firm went public in June 1998, it had partnered with some of the industry's largest players and expanded into Europe and Asia. 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. Yahoo! teamed up with Inktomi and began using the firm's search technology on its site in July of that year, replacing AltaVista as the default search engine.