limelight

Report: Netflix sidelines Akamai in favor of rivals

Netflix is handing more content-distribution business to Level 3 and Limelight and less to rival Akamai, but it has nothing to do with Akamai's performance according to a Netflix spokesman.

On Tuesday, Dan Rayburn reported at his blog Businessofvideo.com that Netflix was making the change because of displeasure over Akamai's performance in delivering streaming video to Netflix subscribers. That's not correct, said Steve Swasey, Netflix's spokesman

"Reports of Netflix dissatisfaction are not accurate," Swasey said. "We continue to engage Akamai as a vendor in our multi-vendor strategy for the foreseeable future." … Read more

Mosso challenges Amazon on cloud storage

On their blog today, Rackspace's cloud division, Mosso, shows off a study they did where they compared the costs and performance of Amazon Web Service's S3 storage service and CloudFront Content Delivery Network (CDN) against Mosso's combination of CloudFiles and their partnership with CDN provider, Limelight Networks. The blog post presents five common use cases, and compares the cost of CloudFiles/Limelight with the Amazon offerings, both with and without Amazon's support option.

I spent some time on the phone yesterday with Mosso co-founder, Jonathan Bryce, and Senior Cloud Architect for Rackspace's cloud division, Erik Carlin, discussing what they found. The short-short version is that, for the five use cases they analyzed, they claim (not surprisingly) that Mosso beats Amazon's offerings in simplicity, cost and performance, especially when support is taken into account.… Read more

What's causing video glitches at Apple, Netflix?

Some Apple TV owners have complained for several weeks that it takes much longer now to download and playback high-definition movies.

"I started downloading an hour back and it says it will take two hours," wrote someone with the user name Reachg. "It's already 25 percent downloaded but it's not letting me play. In the past I was able to play the movie in 10 minutes max...seems something is happening."

The complaints at Apple's forums first appeared on November 14. That was the day after Roku, maker of the Netflix Player, notified customers … Read more

Microsoft looking for the Limelight?

Microsoft has said it plans to continue its acquisition spree this year and it is off to a good start, having announced plans on Tuesday to buy Norway's Fast Search and Transfer.

There's no shortage of rumors of who is next on Steve Ballmer's shopping list. Earlier this week, there were separate rumors that Microsoft was interested in Yahoo as well as accessories maker Logitech.

Henry Blodget of Silicon Alley Insider added another potential name to the list, saying Friday that he's heard that Microsoft might be interested in Limelight, a publicly traded company that runs … Read more