Akamai Technologies has agreed to acquire Cotendo, which specializes in cloud-based acceleration technologies, for approximately $268 million in cash, plus the assumption of outstanding unvested options to purchase Cotendo common stock.
Cotendo offers a suite of Web and mobile acceleration services using from over 30 global distributed point of presence (POPs). Cotendo’s single platform software includes acceleration services for dynamic web applications, static and dynamic web content, SSL, Advanced DNS, Adaptive Image Compression, performance monitoring and automatic failover as well as real-time reports and analytics. Cotendo also offers a distributed cloud application environment called Cloudlet that allows decision-making (logic, data) at the edge, closest to the end users.
Cotendo was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with a technology center in Israel. Cotendo currently has approximately 100 employees, with over 50 based in Israel.
Akamai said the acquisition will increase the pace of innovation in the areas of cloud and mobile optimization.
“As we look to accelerate growth across the dynamic landscapes of cloud and mobile optimization, we are excited to be joining forces with Cotendo,” said Paul Sagan, president and CEO of Akamai. “Cotendo’s technology, partnerships and people are a strong complement to Akamai. Together, we believe there is tremendous opportunity for our combined technologies as enterprises embrace the move to the cloud and seek solutions for an increasingly mobile world.” http://www.akamai.com http://www.cotendo.com
- In June 2011, , introduced a Mobile Acceleration Suite (MAS) to speed up delivery of mobile websites and mobile applications. The solution is especially aimed at reducing latency on mobile devices, which is one of the top revenue killers for content providers. Long page-load times reduce conversions and engagement with applications or sites. The new Cotendo service addresses these latency and page-load performance problems caused by slow or variable mobile network data connectivity rates.
Cotendo’s MAS does not require modifications to the origin site, such as creation of separate Web sites or infrastructure dedicated to mobile content. The MAS suite applies optimizations to speed up mobile content delivery at the logic, content and network layers.
- Also in June 2011, Cotendo raised $17 million private funding for its cloud-based content acceleration technologies. Strategic investors and new business partners Citrix Systems and Juniper Networks, through its Junos Innovation Fund, participated in this round of funding along with existing venture backers Sequoia, Benchmark and Tenaya Capital. Citrix and Juniper, market leaders in their respective industries, join the growing ranks of Cotendo strategic partners, including AT&T, Google and Sumitomo.
- In April 2011, Cotendo announced that AT&T is leveraging its “Cloudlet” capabilities in its AT&T Content Acceleration suite for the faster delivery of dynamic content, such as social media and shopping cart data. Specifically, AT&T is teaming with Cotendo to add their Search Engine Optimization and Cloudlet offerings to the AT&T Content Acceleration suite. This will push the business logic of dynamically generated web pages into the content acceleration cloud.
AccuWeather, which provides up to the minute weather reporting, is using the Cloudlet module of the AT&T Content Acceleration service to improve response times without buying and maintaining additional servers. Previously, users with GPS-enabled smartphones were tying up AccuWeather’s whole network with very specific requests for weather data. AT&T said that with the addition of the Cloudlet module, requests for updated weather information can now be made within a larger local geographic area, eliminating the need to travel back to headquarters for the latest forecast. As a result, update requests to headquarters have declined by 75 percent, and AccuWeather is now providing near real-time response important to its users.
- In April 2011, ntroduced its “Cloudlet” Platform, which helps content providers to push business logic for Web content applications into the cloud and much closer to the end user.
Cotendo said its Cloudlet paradigm will solve the challenge of quickly and efficiently delivering personalized web pages and device-specific content. This type of highly customized content typically cannot leverage the power of traditional content delivery network and site acceleration feature because each page must be generated individually.
Cotendo’s Cloudlet offers the capability to generate and deliver intelligent and real-time adaptive locally cached dynamic assets that can be content-aware (e.g. cookies), device specific, and selective by context (e.g. user’s location). This includes the ability for granular authentication and contextual, personalized application delivery, which enterprises could leverage for serving content to employees and partners around the globe.
Cotendo also sees an opportunity for its Cloudlet to serve content to mobile devices. Cloudlet promises the ability to deliver location and device-aware information on an as-needed basis while simultaneously reducing their origin server calls by 90%.
Cloudlet will integrate with other Cotendo content delivery, site acceleration and Web performance optimization offerings. It does not require code alternations to websites or applications.
