Apple & Akamai Publicly Renew Bandwidth Agreement

by , 5:00 PM EDT, April 23rd, 2001

In a PR move, Apple and Akamai have announced a renewed commitment from Apple to use Akamai's services for world wide bandwidth. Akamai currently supplies bandwidth for Apple's software downloads as well as Apple's QuickTime needs and QuickTime TV. Today's announcement is merely an affirmation that the two companies will continue to work together. According to the two companies (including the fluff quotes we normally remove):

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM - news) and Apple today announced that they will continue to work together to deliver high quality streaming video and audio over the Internet. Akamai's EdgeSuite Service will provide the worldwide infrastructure to support content delivery for Apple.com and Apple's software downloads, and will continue to serve as the worldwide backbone for QuickTime TV (QTV).

"We're thrilled to continue working with Apple, one of Akamai's charter customers, to support Apple's worldwide content delivery needs," said Akamai Chairman and CEO George Conrades. "Apple uses the Web to drive their business, and has developed the Internet as an information and entertainment medium with QTV, and our technologies and services help bring the performance of those products to a new level."

"Apple and Akamai have consistently delivered the highest performance, highest quality streaming video and audio over the Internet," said Philip Schiller, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Apple's customers depend on the quality and reliability they receive from our Akamai-powered Apple.com Web site and QTV."

Apple and Akamai have been working together since 1999 to optimize the quality of streaming video and audio over the Internet, including the record-setting Webcasts of Steve Jobs' Macworld Expo keynote presentations. At Macworld Expo San Francisco 2001, the keynote Webcast set Internet records for streaming media on the Web, with more than 250,000 people watching various parts of the keynote, and more than 35,500 simultaneous viewers generating 5.3 gigabits of peak streaming traffic.

You can find more information on Akamai at their Web site.

The Mac Observer Spin:

Akamai's stock was one of the many tech stocks that reached absurd levels during the final 18 months of the bull rally. Unfortunately, that rise was mainly based on promise and potential as opposed to revenue. Akamai is a very exciting company that we think is going to be around for the long haul. They were among the first companies to successfully set up a world wide server/bandwidth infrastructure that was designed to maximize performance for the end user. Their revenues have continued to grow, even while their stock price has been hammered from a high of over US$300 a share to where it sits now at US$9.14 a share. Ouch. Akamai has been on a PR campaign for many weeks in order to show that their customer base remains strong and that they are growing their services. Hence today's announcement.

Akamai