Content delivery standards in play - Company Business and Marketing

A potential face-off in the development of content peering standards could result from Inktomi Inc.'s acquisition of technology from Adero Inc. earlier this month. Some analysts say the deal compromises Inktomi's independent position in Content Bridge, a for-profit standards setting alliance set up last year to enable content to be delivered and tracked for payment across multiple networks (CWI. September 11 2000, p. 4.)

Content peering agreements enable the cooperation of two or more distinct content delivery networks and could lead to the formation of a larger virtual content delivery network.

In a $23.5 million transaction, Inktomi Inc., of Foster City, California, is to acquire business assets, including intellectual property, from Adero Inc., of Waltham, Massachusetts, for billing, settlement and traffic reporting systems.

As a result of the deal, Inktomi has taken over from Adero-the originator of the alliance-as the intermediary and operator of Content Bridge.

But some industry observers think Inktomi's increased dominance within Content Bridge may make it little more than an Inktomi customer channel. About 150 of Inktomi's content delivery network operator customers are already on a beta-test program of Content Bridge peering services.

Before the transaction, Inktomi was already the leading technology provider to the alliance.

"From the beginning Content Bridge was [arguably] an alliance of Inktomi customers," said Greg Howard, principal analyst and founder, High-Tech Resource Consulting (HTRC) Group LLC, of San Andreas, California. "To develop a standard, one vendor's equipment had to be chosen and at the time of the Content Bridge announcement Inktomi was the only vendor shipping product."

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has, according to Inktomi, approved drafts submitted by Content Bridge for continuation of work on content peering standards. San Jose, California-based Cisco Systems Inc.'s Content Alliance is also undertaking standards work that has found favor with the IETF.

Adero, established in 1998, is reduced to a content service provider operating under its GlobalWise content delivery brand.

"It was a difficult decision [to sell the Content Bridge technology]," said Rick Williams, chief opprating officer at Adero. "We had two good businesses and had to choose one to focus on."

But Inktomi said members of Content Bridge are happy for it to assume operational control.

"Adero was always set up as the intermediary and acted as the connector between content providers and delivery networks." said London-based Joe Frost, director of marketing at Inktomi. "But Adero has decided it can't do that as well as being a content delivery network [operator in its own right, so it made sense for us to purchase that side of their business."

Another view is that Inktomi is attempting to use Content Bridge as a vehicle to take market share from Akamai Technologies Inc., of Cambridge, Massachusetts, a proprietary content delivery network services provider, which develops and deploys its own technology.

"Service providers I've talked to all want to figure out how they're going to enter this market," said HTRC's Howard. "[The service providers] have limited options. They can build their own content delivery network, they can buy services from Akamai or they can become a member of an alliance."

COPYRIGHT 2001 EMAP Media Ltd.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group