Inktomi Inc came in with first quarter numbers yesterday that were better than expected, despite the fact that its losses increased over the same period last year. The San Mateo-based search engine and caching software company reported net losses per share of 24 cents, five cents less than analysts surveyed by First Call. That translated into net losses of $5.8m versus $4.4m in the first quarter of 1997. However, revenues rose sharply, up to $10.7m this time, from $2.4m last and a 30% sequential hike. Inktomi, which supplies the search engine back-ends for the likes of Yahoo, HotBot, Snap and MSN, ICQ and GeoCities processed some 1.8 billion search queries during the quarter, a 33% increase over the previous quarter, largely boosted by ICQ, GeoCities and MSN coming on board during the quarter. In November the company licensed Cisco Systems Inc’s WCCP protocol so it can interact with Cisco’s routers.
