3 Firms Team to Offer High-Speed Services

Sun Microsystems Inc., Inktomi Corp. and Digital Island Inc. said Wednesday that they’ve teamed up to offer high-speed services for businesses operating on the Internet. The news sent Digital Island shares soaring $45.31, a gain of 65%, to close at $114.94, while Inktomi rose $4.31 to close at $168, and Sun Microsystems jumped $6.41 to close at $78.44, all on Nasdaq. Under the deal, Digital Island will install up to 5,000 Sun computer servers at Internet service providers around the world over the next three years. The servers will be equipped with Inktomi traffic and content delivery software to speed delivery of Internet data. Inktomi and Sun both made undisclosed equity investments in Digital as part of the deal. Digital Island, which went public in June, operates large data centers that act as private networks for e-commerce companies.