6. Dave McCarthy, IDC

About a year after buying independent cloud computing vendor Linode, Akamai has debuted its first major, consequent platform: Akamai Connected Cloud.

The release represents Akamai’s most public-facing step when it comes to integrating Linode. In terms of strategy, the $900 million acquisition in early 2022 looked a lot like the pending Broadcom-VMware deal — two companies of very different sizes with different focus and expertise joining forces.

Recall that Akamai made its name as a content delivery network provider; it still offers that service, with security and, thanks to Linode, edge computing. And while Akamai targets large organizations, Linode positioned itself as an alternative to the hyperscalers –Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform – for developers and smaller managed service providers.

Distributed and edge computing, in and of themselves, are not new or revelatory topics. But Akamai, with Connected Cloud, is making waves with some interesting moves in these areas that do set it apart from the crowd, says Dave McCarthy, vice president of research firm IDC’s worldwide infrastructure practice.

“Akamai Connected Cloud is unique in that it is designed with a distributed computing mindset,” McCarthy tells Channel Futures. “That’s not surprising since Akamai is a leader in content delivery networks, so they understand the importance of placing infrastructure close to users.”

Akamai Connected Cloud also marks a “departure” from the typical cloud computing mindset, McCarthy says. The usual setup relies on delivering services from data centers that, for users in Tier 2 or Tier 3 markets, often end up being quite far away.

“In recent years, customers have begun to realize limitations with this approach,” McCarthy said.

Read more from Kelly Teal’s interview here.