The Economist chooses Madge.web's network
netimperative.com
Madge.web's upgraded network goes live
by Louise Carroll on 16 March 2001 08:00:00 GMT
Managed network provider Madge.web has upgraded its global network with new content
distribution services for businesses that want to deliver rich media content, such as video
streaming, to their customers.
The company's content distribution services (CDS) place content at a server nearest to the end
user. The process speeds up the time it takes to deliver the content to the customer, and
Madge.web claims it can deliver web pages up to 75% faster. The new upgrade also means it is
easier to replicate the same content across the network for better performance.
The network upgrade has taken about six months. Nick Stacey, VP of product marketing at
Madge.web explained: "One of the new things we are offering today is Windows Media Format
and Apple QuickTime as well as the RealNetworks format which we have offered for some time.
Now people have more choices in how they want to view the content."
The company has also announced its first customer, business weekly The Economist, to have a
live deployment on the network. The new Economist.tv site features video news, which was built
with assistance from Westminster Digital, a UK webcasting company. Stacey said that one of
the reasons The Economist chose Madge.web's network is that it has presence in the
Economist's major markets including North America, Asia Pacific, and Europe.
Madge.web's new CDS competes with other content delivery offerings from companies
including market leader Akamai, epicRealm, Digital Island, and Mirror Image. But Stacey said
that Madge.web differentiates itself from the competition because of its technology. He pointed
to the company's integrated managed IP services and hosting, its traffic management, and the
fact that it delivers full web pages in their entirety, as opposed to some companies that deliver
the objects that make up a web page separately.
Madge.web product manager Michael Davies said that, in contrast to the business models of
content distribution network (CDN) players such as Akamai, sending the objects separately
requires far more administration than sending a web page whole.
He said: "We deliver a whole web page with all the embedded objects and we can do this
through the way we use the Inktomi technology on our network." The Inktomi technology is used to
store and push the content throughout the Madge.web network.
The Madge.web CDS also offers website reporting and analysis from eSpective as well as
streaming media reporting from Lariat.
In a separate development for the content delivery network market, internet connectivity and
routing provider Internap Network Services is to offer its customers services from Akamai's
EdgeSuite, which allows companies to construct web pages on the edge servers of the network,
rather than on a business's own origin server. Since December Internap has been a reseller of
Akamai's services including FreeFlow, FreeFlow Streaming, FirstPoint and EdgeScape. |
