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. Last year, Akamai promised to retain Linode’s focus on those partners and their customers. Akamai Connected Cloud makes good on that, to some extent. We explore what we mean by that in the slideshow above.

Edge & Cloud Platform

When it comes to the official description for Connected Cloud, Akamai’s press release calls it a “distributed edge and cloud platform for computing, security and content delivery.”

In a Feb. 10 briefing with media, Shawn Michels, vice president of product management at Akamai, said Akamai Connected Cloud “builds on what Akamai is known for: global scale, reach, capacity, availability … providing additional infrastructure services.” On the whole, there are some unique (and some not-so-unique) angles involved, which Channel Futures discusses in the slideshow above with analysts from IDC and Gartner.

Finally, Channel Futures also talks with Akamai’s Matt Berk, vice president of customer operations, about Akamai Connected Cloud and its channel impact. It’s not a conventional approach, at least for now. As such, independent software vendors, MSPs, system integrators and others interested in Akamai Connected Cloud will want to understand the nuances.

See the slideshow above to dive into the details on Akamai Connected Cloud and what it means for the channel.