Going Where the Hyperscalers Have Not

All in all, Akamai’s strategy for targeting regions the hyperscalers typically do not looks like a solid one.

“Regarding underserved markets, customers are looking for more options to deploy cloud applications locally,” says IDC’s McCarthy. “While the major cloud providers are building more local sites, they will start with the major markets and it will be some time before second- and third-tier markets are addressed. Akamai is already in those markets, which gives them a head start.”

Medford provides a small note of clarification, though. During the Feb. 10 media briefing, Akamai executives hyped the company’s “core sites” — or data centers — announcements. That prompted Channel Futures to ask analysts what’s genuinely different about Akamai’s cloud tactics. Here’s what Gartner’s Medford says about Akamai’s data center news:

“They are distinct from some of Akamai’s other points of presence in that they will be locations where the full set of Connected Cloud offerings will be available. They are not distinct from other independent cloud computing providers except insofar as their integration to Akamai.”

On that note, Akamai also talked up its new compliance with standards including PCI, HIPAA and ISO 27001. Frankly, this isn’t something to get too excited about, since every cloud computing provider has to meet specific regulatory standards.

“The importance of compliance standards is more as table stakes for relevant organizations and workloads than it is as a differentiator,” Medford says.

McCarthy agrees.

“The compliance news is really just a catch up to the other providers. [Akamai] most likely didn’t need this for their CDN business, but it becomes more important as they move into general-purpose workloads.”

Next up, we get into the all-important channel aspect of Akamai Connected Cloud. The company is calling its new initiative the Qualified Computing Partner Program.