Akamai Becomes Net Hot-Shot With Cisco & Apple Investments.

Akamai Technologies Inc has become the latest internet dish of the day, with Cisco Systems Inc making a $49m investment yesterday, while Apple Computer Corp revealed that it pumped $12.5m into the company back in June. The Cambridge Massachusetts-based MIT start-up uses servers located on the very edge of internet networks combined with load-balancing software and promises faster web content delivery for its customers, which include Yahoo, CNN, the New York Times on the Web, and the ultra- trendy "Blair Witch Project" web site.

Cisco says it will work on developing interfaces between its hardware and software and the Akamai services. The Akamai software monitors the 'health' of the internet, locates the optimal server path for content and monitors the status of the Akamai network that the content is held on - checking for server failures and the like and will concentrate particularly on integrating the Akamai algorithms with its core IOS operating system. Cisco expects this work to take 18 months to two years. Eventually the company is looking to develop content routing and switching protocols that can be put before a standards body. Cisco is working with Akamai to deliver content from its charity concert, NetAid.

Meantime, Apple is using Akamai to deliver its QuickTime TV service. Interestingly, the $12.5m Apple paid Akamai in June netted it a 5% stake in the company. The $49m that Cisco has just paid out has only gained it a 4% stake.

Akamai has over 900 servers in 15 countries worldwide. The company promises customers which pay to use its FreeFlow service 100% uptime and faster content access than other providers. A spokesperson for the company said that the total capacity of its network is 124Gb per second. The service currently handles around a quarter of a billion hits per day.