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CHECK OUT THIS NEWS...
Net heavyweights seen setting up content service
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Three Internet heavyweights, Sun Microsystems Inc. ,
Inktomi
Corp and Digital Island Inc. are expected to announce a plan Wednesday to partner in
delivering content over the Internet. Content delivery has become one of the hottest areas of
the Internet
because many corporations are shifting their businesses online. Content services help
create reliable
connections for transactions or multimedia transmissions that require more reliable and
quick routing than
normal Internet traffic.
"The way they are handling this announcement suggests something significant, but they've
been very
tight-lipped about what they are up to," said Greg Howard of HTRC Group, an Internet
consulting service.
A number of analysts said they were advised that they would be briefed ahead of time, but
the companies
cancelled the meetings. The companies said only that they would have "a major
announcement" and would
disclose no more. Digital Island operates data centers around the world that ferry Internet
content to and from
heavily trafficked sites, while Inktomi has technology for caching, or storing, Internet pages to
maximize the use
of scarce network capacity. Sun is the world's largest seller of computers that serve Web
pages.
Peter Christy, of Internet Research Group, said that "what's driving everyone in this sector is
Akamai's $21
billion valuation." Akamai, which was founded a year ago and went public over the summer in
one of the year's
hottest offerings, is another content delivery service that operates about 1,500 servers to
route traffic for
e-commerce businesses.
Akamai has set up its vast network without the help of Sun's market-leading servers, but
uses, instead, Intel
Corp processors within proprietary architecture. The partnership deal being announced is
almost
certain to boost the use of Sun servers in the fast-growing business, employing software and
technology
developed by Inktomi and Digital Island, analysts said. |
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