Akamai close to being acquired by Google

[0x12]

It's a pity that Daniel Lewin isn't around for this, I'm sure that it would have been a very nice crown on his work.

to whoever saw fit to downvote this: I hope that people will still remember your name a decade after you die through no fault of your own when you co-found a company as successful as Akamai.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_M._Lewin

The man was a true hero as far as I'm concerned.

[njharman]

[Glad others have pointed out this acquisition is probably false rumor.]

Maybe if you're a startup being acquired by bigco, it is a feather in your hat. A bigco being acquired by another bigco is a failure for acquiree and not something to crown yourself about.

[bdhe]

His legacy lives on in the Danny Lewin Best Student paper award at STOC, the premier theory conference. Here's a list of awardees: http://sigact.org/Prizes/Student/

[obtino]

Apparently not: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-12/google-is-said-not-...

Google Inc. (GOOG) isn’t planning to acquire Akamai Technologies Inc. (AKAM), two people familiar with the matter said, countering a report in Business Insider that fueled speculation a takeover may be imminent.

[byrneseyeview]

The tables have turned: this Reuters story is just rehashing Business Insider, which broke the story earlier:

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-move-2011-10

BI's version actually has more background and analysis, in addition to being the source.

[jcampbell1]

How is this good for Google? Akamai is rarely used by Google, but used by Microsoft/Apple/Facebook. Something seems dirty about a Google acquisition.

[diogenescynic]

Remember Google acquired ITA Software-- it was used by all the sites like Kayak/Bing and the others (American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Continental Airlines, Orbitz) who buy traffic from Google. Google bought Picnik because Flickr used it. Google bought Global IP Solutions used by Yahoo, AOL, WebEx and Lotus.

It seems like these are clearly anti-competitive moves meant to put their competitors at their mercy.

[mburns]

diversification is dirty? Really?

[Toddward]

Akamai's market cap is $4.3B, which means Google would have to drop at least that (but really much more) to acquire them. Something tells me Google's investors are going to go bananas (not in a good way) if this goes through, especially on the heels of their Motorola Mobility acquisition.

[WestCoastJustin]

Seems like a good fit seeing as "20% of the world's Internet traffic is delivered over the Akamai platform." (www.akamai.com/html/technology/visualizing_akamai.html).

Akamai & Google already have duplicate CDN/Endpoint infrastructure (albeit Akamai's is a CDN platform and Google just delivers for their properties). Akamai has something like 61k servers in most (if not all) major datacenters/ISPs and key peering agreements. Major overlap.. DNS/HTTP(s)/Streaming(youtube)/Data Mining, etc. This could possibly be a big revenue boost for Google in that they consolidate existing peering agreements, etc. and consolidate servers within the last couple miles. Google already does many of these things but it is Akamai's sole business and they do it very well! Probably a big win for Google to have the talent and relationships that Akamai already has. Akamai customers benefit from Googles infrastructure & people.

Edit: context + grammer

[le]

Akamai's footprint exceeds 100k servers worldwide now, and that's just what they publicly disclose. It is likely more if you count in their DoD contracts. They're probably on par with Google now.

[zmanji]

Could this mean Google will offer a file storage and CDN like AWS? What benefit could Akamai provide to Google besides more infrastructure? I'm sure Google could enhance their infrastructure without paying a premium.

[hwatson]

They already do. http://code.google.com/apis/storage/

[TruthPrevails]

I came to know recently that Google had plans to use services of Akamai. When agreement could not be reached on the pricing, Google came up with its own content delivery network. Now this acquisition. Puzzling.

[davidu]

I do not believe this to be factually correct. Unfortunately, just as this guy can't list his sources, I can't explain why I believe this to be factually incorrect (in the letter and spirit).

[rudiger]

A lot of traffic runs through Akamai.

Google can mine that data and use it in their core product, the search engine.

[dj_axl]

Akamai already mines that data for their ad network.

http://www.akamai.com/html/solutions/ads/acerno.html

[tybris]

Larry's on a spending spree.

[william42]

Does Microsoft still run their sites on Akamai? I know Facebook does.

[fname]

A lot of corporations use Akamai, Microsoft included -- http://www.akamai.com/html/customers/customer_list.html. Interesting enough, the only name missing from that list? Google.

[artsrc]

This is a platform, you can just buy them:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101876

[foobarbazetc]

Anyone who takes anything Business Insider says seriously is a fool.

[andyfleming]

Scary...

[teflonhook]

If they do this deal it's because they see Amazon as a threat.

[RyanKearney]

Looks like Facebook is going to need to find another CDN...

[le]

If the deal goes through, it may require Facebook to take a different approach with their CDN strategy. They will probably either begin to roll their own (given their size and budgets), or move to a blended environment where they utilize multiple CDNs based on region and traffic levels.

For example, Apple historically has used Akamai for their content delivery, but as of around ~2009, they began to use Limelight in conjunction with Akamai. Just today with the iOS 5/OS X updates, I noticed at home in Los Angeles that the delivery from Limelight was terrible. I tried it again about an hour after release, and I was then being sent to Level3.

Suffice to say, Apple is now using three CDNs.