If you build it, and it "STREAMS", they will come...here's another article:
Sun, Inktomi, Digital Island in Web Venture
By Dick Satran
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Internet heavyweights Sun Microsystems Inc. (NasdaqNM:SUNW - news), Inktomi Corp. (NasdaqNM:INKT - news) and Digital Island Inc. (NasdaqNM:ISLD - news) on Wednesday teamed up to offer high-speed services for businesses operating on the Internet.
The news sent Digital Island shares soaring $45-5/16 to close at $114-15/16, a gain of 65 percent, on the Nasdaq stock market. Inktomi rose $4-51/6 $168, and Sun Microsystems rose $6-7/16 to $78-7/16.
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 as companies shift their businesses online. Inktomi and Sun both made undisclosed equity investments in Digital as part of the deal.
The partnership comes as a growing number of high-tech companies, ranging from hot start-up Akamai Technologies Inc. (NasdaqNM:AKAM - news) to established players like Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - news) and AT&T Corp (NYSE:T - news), have entered the race to offer faster and more reliable Internet services for the e-commerce boom. Faster services give companies a competitive advantage and facilitate the use of multimedia ''streaming'' video and audio.
The new partnership is based on the view that by moving processing power ''to the edge of the network,'' the Internet's notorious bottlenecks and slowdowns can be avoided, said Ruann Ernst, Digital Island's chief executive. By placing computer servers at strategic locations and storing data, the partnership says it can dramatically improve the Internet's performance.
The partnership is the largest effort to date to install powerful telecommunications carrier-class computers to connect businesses to the existing high-speed telecommunications network, the three companies said.
''We are not focusing on, or divulging, the amount of the equity investments,'' Ernst said during a conference call. ''We are talking about the marketing relationship.''
Inktomi's investment would add to the stake it already holds in Sandpiper Networks, which agreed to merge with Digital Island in October. The Sun investment is subject to regulatory approval.
Inktomi has long been a provider of caching technology, which it supplies to 45 percent of search services and to e-commerce shopping companies. Digital Island, which went public in June, operates large data centers that act as private networks for e-commerce companies. Sun brings to the partnership its position as the market leader in servers that send and receive Internet data.
The alliance may have been inspired, in part, by the success of Akamai, a content-delivery service that has generated a market value of more than $20 billion after just one year in business, analysts said.
Akamai created a vast network of computers around the world to handle Internet traffic for private customers. Akamai shares jumped $7.75 to $233.75 as investors took the new, competing venture as an affirmation of Akamai's business model. Akamai built its network without Sun's market-leading computers, which could explain Sun's interest in backing a competitor.
The partnership plans to target 350 metropolitan markets with the systems, including 250 markets outside the United States.
''The goal is to push information and content to the edge of the network where it becomes faster to retrieve and send,'' said Sun President Ed Zander. Sun has long pushed the concept of ''distributed computing'' under its mantra, ''The Network is the Computer,'' Zander said, adding, ''The world is coming around to our view.''
Digital Island said it expects to invest up to $150 million to extend the reach and expand the capacity of its existing e-Business Content Delivery Network, which currently consists of regionally located data centers and more than 1,200 content distribution sites spanning 21 countries.
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