By Stephen Phillips
Internet infrastructure company, Inktomi Corp took the wraps off a pact with SAP AG, yesterday, to integrate its search and directory engine products on the number-one ERP software vendor’s mySAP.com enterprise portal. The deal, signed secretly over the summer gives Foster City, California-based Inktomi its first foothold in the enterprise portal market as it continues to seek out new vertical online markets for its portal services software.
Kevin Brown, director of marketing at Inktomi told ComputerWire that mySAP.com was already shipping with the company’s search engine aboard, but that the company was still working to modify its directory engine platform for the different vertical-market versions of the enterprise portal, which include editions for the manufacturing market and healthcare sector. Brown said the deal offers a great proof point of the scope for deployment of Inktomi’s software in vertical-market portals.
The deal is another step in Inktomi’s strategy to broaden its opportunities amid declining growth in sales of its search engine products, which account for 40% of the company’s total revenue. Inktomi which earns a fee per transaction for its search engine products reported 20% sequential growth in revenue from this source for its most-recent quarter to September 30, but warned that revenue growth would be between 15 and 20% for the current quarter to December 31. We’re always looking for ways to weave our technology into new trends on the internet, said Brown.
Meantime Brown confirmed that the company had held talks with SAP with a view to the German software giant reselling the enterprise-level version of Inktomi’s Traffic Server, web caching software, launched earlier this month. He said the two sides had yet to close a deal, but that Inktomi was always looking for cross-selling opportunities.
