Comments on: Akamai in talks to acquire Nine Systems

By: the economics of my life » Ouch: LLNW shares plunge 27%; 80% off 52-week high

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 04:06:17 +0000

[...] Anonymous commenter (in 2006): The reason Akamai stock has done so well is that they have taken out their competitors. As soon as a new one emerges they either 1) sue them to try to stop their growth (Speedera, Limelight, Digital Island) or 2) buy them to constrain the market [Speedera, Netli, Nine Systems, Red Swoosh]. [...]

By: spenser

spenser — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 07:06:49 +0000

Interesting read.

But, speaking only to the comment immediately above this one in regard to the placement of servers, I would think whether this is for technical requirements or due to the wish to affect test results, the difference in the end is moot. After all, keynote also places their testing points for the be representation of the internet audience. So, by following keynote, it would only be putting the servers where real people needed them.

By: Jim Duggan

Jim Duggan — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 19:50:53 +0000

Just an FYI to the person noting about Keynote/Gomez reports on the CDN. I know for a fact Akamai finds out where these companies place their nodes and puts one of their systems in the same DC. They have the smoke and mirrors down as well :)

By: Nine Insider

Nine Insider — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 18:04:22 +0000

Well I can only comment on whether I still have a job or not. I see Ak eating up the clients and liquidating Nine.
The talk is going around that current staff should start saving now. It is too bad; Nine was a great idea and product. Ease of use was unreal. Level of support top notch 24/7/365. Content delivery near perfect. Engineers fixing things on the fly giving 100% attention to detail.
Sad to see us go bye bye but the Execs started this for one purpose; money. Who can blame them for selling the biz.

By: J'Eze

J'Eze — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 16:48:30 +0000

Well, its done. “Nine Insider” - it’d be interesting if you kept us in the loop of how Akamai plans to integrate. My bet is nothing happens for a few months with staff and changes.

By: anon

anon — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 01:13:39 +0000

All the poor Nine Systems employee’s that spent all those years fighting to compete with akamai only to be sold out by there management making I am sure a fortune. It will be interesting to see if Akamai can keep all of Nine Systems clients, because there seems to be running out of the akamai alternative CDN networks.

By: Nine Insider

Nine Insider — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:56:16 +0000

Hmmm. I work for Nine Systems. Guess I need to look for another job. Poor Poor Akami.

By: J'Eze

J'Eze — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:11:33 +0000

Baseline measurements from Gomez and Keynote when choosing a CDN. Akamai times are the best, Panther and Mirror Image are a close 2/3, and Limelight is a (very) distant 4th. LLN folks or supporters can argue, but this was unbiased data from 3rd party monitoring systems.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:38:42 +0000

This is an interesting development with Akamai, since our programs on TasteTV (http://www.TasteTV.com) use the Brightcove platform.

By: ThatGuy

ThatGuy — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 14:32:15 +0000

I’m curious as to how you’re comparing Limelight’s performance against other CDNs. You remark that Limelight’s performance is “not that good” but my experience has been that they are comparable to Akamai and the others for basic object delivery and streaming. And, NO…I don’t work for Limelight or for one of their partners.

By: J'Eze

J'Eze — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 20:11:30 +0000

Akamai can fight and acquire all they want, but the commoditization of the CDN market is inevitable. CDN’s offer a huge value-add, so don’t get me wrong, but “old-school incumbents” like Akamai are charging a premium price for what is ostensibly service-enhanced IP transit. They’re paying x type prices to their upstreams and billing x*4/5/6 (and more) to their customers. Yeah, yeah, talk to me about Akamai’s secret sauce, but its just a hacked up version of Squid. They’ve been at it a few years now, so its pretty good, but their performance gains come from their vast distrubtion - which is reflected back in the cost of their service. The new CDN’s on the market like Panther Express, Cachefly, and Limelight (to an extent although their performance is not that good) have the right idea with reasonable distribution (not the superfluous 18000+ servers) and MUCH lower costs. There’s a reason Akamai is moving away from the static content/progressive download market and suing the likes of Limelight.

By: IT Blogwatch

IT Blogwatch — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 12:41:25 +0000

Java is free, as in GPL (and feline noun verbage)…

The Duke of URL is IT Blogwatch, in which Sun open-sources Java. Not to mention the cats that are VERBING UR NOUNZ…

By: Euphoric

Euphoric — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:52:16 +0000

I think the folks at Nine Systems are getting a better multiple than what Speedera received from the Akamai acquisition. Does it say anywhere that Nine Systems is even profitable, especially if they have to also follow SFAS 123(R) rules?

By: Jesse Kopelman

Jesse Kopelman — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 23:56:58 +0000

DOJ is not going to spend a lot of time reviewing a $150M acquisition. These potatos are way too small to be worrying about antitrust. The government is not proactive. They worry about current conditions, not what the market could be like in 5 - 10 years.

By: Stu

Stu — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:41:14 +0000

Interesting that Akamai would want to buy Nine..when they spent roughly a $1Bil for InterVu back in the day. Many sales folks and clients migrated over to Nine ..With the DEMs in control and a lame duck President one would think the DOJ will take a while to think this sale through.. But in the end if execs want to cash out then this is their only play but to sell to Akamai.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:13:31 +0000

The Justice Department should take a hard look at this. The reason Akamai stock has done so well is that they have taken out their competitors. As soon as a new one emerges they either 1) sue them to try to stop their growth (Speedera, Limelight, Mirror Image, Cable & Wireless) or 2) buy them to constrain the market.