US firm Akamai, recently ranked as the world’s largest content delivery network operator, has acquired a Californian provider of content acceleration software called FastSoft for an unspecified amount, as it seeks to bolster its cloud infrastructure solutions with technology for optimising the throughput of video and other digital content across IP networks.
FastSoft was launched in 2006 to commercialise network optimisation technology. Its patented FastTCP algorithms improve Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), adding intelligence designed to increase the speed of dynamic page views and file transfer downloads while reducing the effects of network latency and packet loss.
FastSoft’s unique technology has helped improve website and web application performance across the first and last miles, as well as through the cloud, without requiring client software or browser plug-ins.
Combining FastSoft with Akamai’s existing network protocols is expected to help enable Akamai to optimise server capacity, deliver higher throughput for video, and bring greater efficiency to its global platform.
The FastSoft team will be integrated into Akamai’s engineering group, establishing a Center of Excellence in Pasadena, California around network protocols and optimisation technology. The acquisition is not expected to have a material impact on Akamai’s financials.
Akamai launched a new suite of cloud-based services earlier this week designed to unify the delivery, workflow and monetisation of online video, called the Sola Media Solutions portfolio and built on the Akamai Intelligent Platform, which it presented at the IBC trade show which finished earlier this week in Amsterdam.
A recent study by Informa Telecoms & Media (publisher of IP&TV News) on the global CDN market found that Akamai remains the largest of the traditional CDNs, both in terms of revenues and number of network servers, but faces growing competition, specialisation and consolidation threats.
