Yahoo! to buy Inktomi

NEWS Yahoo! is acquiring search engine firm Inktomi in a deal worth $235m (£147m), the companies said on Monday. Yahoo! will pay $1.65 for each share of Inktomi, which closed at $1.17 on Friday. The total value of the deal includes an adjustment for Inktomi's cash balance and debt balance. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2003. Inktomi recently completed the sale of its corporate search business to Verity for about $25m in cash. The sale of the business unit was supposed to free Inktomi up to focus on its consumer business. Inktomi has faced increased competition from companies, most notably Google. The company recently let go 20 percent of its work force. Inktomi currently has deals to supply search services to Web sites including MSN.com and About.com. Yahoo!, which maintains its own category-driven directory, recently signed a deal with Google and Overture to display advertising linked to keywords in searches on its Japanese site. In October, Yahoo! said it extended into the long term a deal to carry Google's search listings as a backup for its own search directory, but did not provide a time frame. Yahoo! chief executive Terry Semel said in a release that the Inktomi purchase would add "both control and flexibility" to the search business, thus "enhancing our ability to create new and more innovative search offerings for consumers and business." But the companies did not explicitly say how the Inktomi search would be combined with Yahoo!'s service, and what impact the deal would have on Yahoo!'s deals with Google. Company officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Inktomi lost $41.5m, or 29 cents per share, in fiscal 2002, on sales of $112.7m, excluding charges for real estate and asset impairment charges, restructuring charges, and commerce division activity, among other charges. But Yahoo! said it expected the deal to boost its earnings per share within 12 months of closing.

See the Finance News Section for the latest financial news in the high-tech sector. Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.

Post your comment

In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in

By signing up for this service, you indicate that you agree to our Terms and Conditions and have read and understood our Privacy Policy. Questions about membership? Find the answers in the Membership FAQ

ZDNet UK Live

Please give me chance in the vodafone essar Ltd as back office executive

53 minutes ago by sudipta_vodafone on Vodafone culls 375 'mainly back-office' jobs

I want to get a back office job in vodafone direct payroll

53 minutes ago by sudipta_vodafone on Vodafone culls 375 'mainly back-office' jobs

I also find it harder to use. It used to scale properly in Firefox. Text would size up and down without dragging all the right edge debris with it....

5 hours ago by Xwindowsjunkie on ZDNet UK: faster, smarter, still IT all the way

that comment bot is a nutter, it just referred me to the moderator on my own blog. shocked look. please help thank you Dava I'm afriad to...

8 hours ago by dava4444 on Welcome to the new ZDNet UK community!

Hi Rupert! Don't think I could fill the above shoes... but if your ever looking for a consumer rights Tech blogger..tip me the wink lol peace Dava

9 hours ago by dava4444 on Fancy working for ZDNet UK?

Hi Rupert My photo is gone from my profile and I just got told i was a spammer by the comment bot. the navigation is gone for my profile. :O on...

9 hours ago by dava4444 on Welcome to the new ZDNet UK community!

With windows it is always more bloat, and a lot of that seems to be duplicated in various places. I've noticed that you will have freed space on...

15 hours ago by ator1940 on Can you believe it - 2765 kB will be freed?

Buzz My Stat : New search for http://www.zdnet.co.uk Take a look: http://www.buzzmystat.com/site/zdnet.co.uk

19 hours ago on Twitter by BuzzMyStat

Hi Jamie, I'm sorry your comment got caught in the spam filter. We use an industry standard blacklist for this. I suspect that the comment may...

24 hours ago by Karen Friar on Spam? Filter Changed?

Pop - Neither have I. Ever, under any circumstances. I'm much more accustomed to Windows slowly, but inexorably, consuming more and more disk...

1 day ago by J.A. Watson on Can you believe it - 2765 kB will be freed?

Apple are currently pushing to get tv content on the iPad by April 3rd. This could possibly be seen as a spoiler for that announcement I suppose....

2 days ago by John Molloy

Hey - presume you mean something that builds on Apple's existing TV device? Apple have already had a couple of runs at building Apple TV and it's...

2 days ago by Andrew Donoghue on Google's TV timing may reveal more to come

Google, Sony, Intel may build TV project www.zdnet.co.uk/news/emerging-tech/2010/03/18/google-sony-intel-may-build-tv-project-40088359/

2 days ago on Twitter by BVE2011

70,0000 to 90,0000 computers? A very small number considering some of these botnets are in the millions, and there are so many of them operating,...

2 days ago by ator1940 on Microsoft says it decimated Waledac botnet

I agree Roger, and why can't they write secure code? What will happen when they find stolen code in windows? They have a track record of...

2 days ago by ator1940 on Microsoft lashing out at Linux, open source

Do you think it will really take days?

2 days ago by ator1940 on Microsoft previews Internet Explorer 9 with HTML 5 support

@evilmanic have you seen the new hp on zdnetuk

2 days ago on Twitter by neilfab

Wonder how many days it will take before somebody codes an exploitive hack for IE9?

2 days ago by Xwindowsjunkie on Microsoft previews Internet Explorer 9 with HTML 5 support

There are some really good people in Microsoft and I wonder, how embarassing it must be for them to see how the organisation behaves from it's...

3 days ago by roger andre on Microsoft lashing out at Linux, open source

On further inspection, it looks like some things are missing, is it possible that there was a time lag between whatever state the site was in that...

3 days ago by J.A. Watson on Welcome to the new ZDNet UK community!

Featured white papers

Achieving PCI Compliance for:Privileged Password Management & Remote Vendor Access

e-DMZ Security

For multi-store outlets, including retail, banking, grocery, gas, hospitality, convenience stores and others, reducing (or avoiding) the cost of in-store system support and maintenance while maintaining compliance with PCI and other requirements has become a strategic challenge.

Download now

Web 2.0 Security Threats: How to Protect Your Enterprise Network

Qualys

Speaker: Dr. Chenxi Wang, Principal Analyst, Security and Risk Management, Forrester Research, Inc. As Enterprises are increasingly connected to the Internet and as hard organizational boundaries are fast disappearing, security professionals are facing fresh challenges in Enterprise computing.

Download now