Akamai to buy Nine Systems

A correction was made to this story. Read below for details.

Akamai Technologies has signed an agreement to buy streaming-media tools developer Nine Systems in a deal valued at nearly $160 million, the companies said Monday.

Under the deal, Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai will pay roughly $7 million in cash and about 3.1 million Akamai shares to shareholders of privately held Nine Systems, of San Diego.

Shares of Akamai, which sells services that accelerate the transmission of data, content and business applications over the Web, closed at $49.25 on Friday. That closing price would value the stock part of the deal at about $152.7 million.

The deal is designed to provide customers of Akamai with Nine's Web-based tools, enabling them to produce, publish and distribute their own streaming and downloadable media over Akamai's network.

The use of video online is becoming increasingly pervasive as broadband technology extends beyond Corporate America and into the home.

"Integrating (Nine Systems') Stream OS into our delivery network will allow Akamai to more fully support asset control rights management and media reporting to better enable our customers' digital-media business," Paul Sagan, Akamai's chief executive, said in a statement.

The deal is expected to close by year's end.

 

Correction: This story originally gave an incorrect location for Akamai's headquarters. The company is based in Cambridge, Mass.