Akamai Technologies, Inc. provides services and solutions for digital media distribution and storage, content and application delivery, application performance services, on demand managed services, and Web site intelligence.
Solutions
The company offers services and solutions for digital media distribution and storage, content and application delivery, application performance services, on demand managed services and Web site intelligence. It has developed three business solutions to offer its customers a suite of services that include Digital Asset Solutions, Dynamic Site Solutions and Application Performance Solutions. Its customers can also purchase on-demand managed services, site intelligence offerings and custom solutions designed for individual customer needs.
Digital Asset Solutions
Akamai Media Delivery Solution: The Akamai Media Delivery Solution is designed to provide a solution to various challenges of media delivery over the Internet by helping media industry companies bypass traditional server and bandwidth limitations to handle peak traffic conditions and large file sizes. It supports all major streaming formats, and its EdgePlatform provides capacity levels that individual enterprises might not be able to replicate on their own.
The company’s Akamai Media Delivery Solution is primarily used by companies in the entertainment, including television, radio, sports, music and media; gaming and social networking; and Internet search/portal access industries. The solution can accommodate various business models used by its customers including pay-per-view, subscription, advertising and syndication.
Akamai Electronic Software Delivery Solution: The company’s Electronic Software Delivery Solution is designed to control the Akamai EdgePlatform to provide capacity for large surges in traffic related to software launches and other distributions. This solution is useful for software companies of all types including consumer, enterprise, anti-virus and gaming.
Akamai EdgeSuite Delivery Solution: Through its EdgeSuite delivery service, the company can accelerate the delivery of its customers’ Web sites over the Internet by making their content accessible across its international network of servers. This distributed performance model is intended to provide its customers with a way to implement and maintain a global Internet presence. While site owners maintain a source copy of their content and applications, EdgeSuite provides global delivery, load balancing and storage of content and applications, enabling businesses to focus valuable resources on strategic matters, rather than technical infrastructure issues. This solution is useful for any enterprise that has a Web site. Customers of the company’s Digital Asset Solutions also have access to advanced service features such as: Secure Content Distribution, Site Failover, Disaster Recovery, Net Storage, and Content Targeting.
Dynamic Site Solutions
Akamai’s Dynamic Site Solutions are designed for accelerating business-to-consumer Web sites that integrate collaborative content and applications into their online architecture. Its services inter-operate with dynamic software applications such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and Macromedia Flash. The features of the Dynamic Site Solutions offering include Cache Optimization, Compression, and Capacity On-Demand. The company’s Dynamic Site Solutions are primarily purchased by retail and travel companies for their commerce-related Web sites as well as enterprises that rely on the Internet for brand-building through research and discussion tools for their current and potential customers.
Application Performance Solutions
Application Performance Solutions are designed to allow the company’s customers to offer portal applications and other Web-based systems for communicating with their customers, employees and business partners. Its Web Application Accelerator service is designed to improve the performance of Web- and IP-based applications through a combination of dynamic caching, compression, routing and connection optimization. This service is appropriate for companies involved in technology, business services, travel and leisure, manufacturing and other industries where there is a movement to Internet-based communication with remote customers, suppliers and franchisees. Enterprise customers are using the Web Application Accelerator services to run applications such as online airline reservations systems, course planning tools, customer order processing and human resources applications.
Other Solutions
On Demand Managed Services
Akamai’s on demand managed services, including the company’s EdgeComputing and on demand application offerings, enable enterprises to reduce the need for an internal infrastructure to handle unpredictable levels of Internet traffic. With access to its network, customers are able to launch and deploy new applications worldwide. Akamai On Demand Events provides an on demand platform for running promotional Web sites — through Macromedia Flash promotions, site search, sweepstakes, polls, regional offers or other applications.
Site Intelligence Offerings
Akamai’s offerings in this area include the company’s network data feeds and its Web analytics offering, which provide customers with real time data about the performance of their content and applications over the Internet and on the EdgePlatform. Its business performance management services help customers understand their Web operations through information with tools that measure all aspects of an application’s performance. A customer could use Web site data feeds from Akamai’s customer portal to assist in managing costs and budget. The core of these offerings lies in its EdgeControl tools, which provide reporting and management capabilities.
EdgeControl tools are Web-portal based and can be integrated with existing enterprise management systems, allowing its customers to manage their distributed content and applications through a common interface. EdgeControl also provides integration with third party network management tools, including those offered by IBM, Hewlett-Packard and BMC Software. Akamai provides a global network of servers that can be utilized by customers for troubleshooting, monitoring and reporting, based on their individual business requirements.
Custom Solutions
The company provides custom solutions to both commercial and government customers. These solutions include replicating its technologies to facilitate content delivery behind the firewall, combinations of its technology with that of other providers to create solutions for specific customers and support for mission-critical applications that rely on the Internet and intranets. Federal government agencies depend on Akamai for information about traffic conditions and activity on the Internet and tailored solutions to their content delivery needs.
Sales and Service
The company’s sales and service professionals are located in 11 offices in the United States with additional locations in Europe and Asia. It markets and sells its services and solutions domestically and internationally through its direct sales and services organization and through approximately 50 active resellers including Electronic Data Systems Corporation, IBM Corporation, Verizon and Telefonica Group.
Customers
As of December 31, 2006, the company’s customers included Apple Inc., Best Buy.com, Inc., Clear Channel, FedEx Corporation, L’Oreal, Microsoft Corporation, MTV Networks, Nintendo, Qantas Airways Limited, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, Victoria’s Secret and XM Satellite Radio. It also sells to government agencies. As of December 31, 2006, its public sector customers included American Red Cross, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earthquake Hazards Program.
History
Akamai Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1998.
