It looks like Limelight Networks (LLNW) might be turning the corner and going back to its roots as a CDN. Yes, the CDN market is commoditized and margins are thin, but this applies to some features only. Charging a premium for Application Delivery Network, FEO, Rules Engine, SSL, DNS Services, Load Balancing, Reporting, Transcoding, & Cloud Storage significantly improves margins.
Thinking outside the box, If I wear in LLNW shoes, for beginners, I would introduce a new marketing theme that is CDN centric, like High Performance CDN, Dynamic CDN, Intelligent CDN, or something along those lines. The story would convey to the public that LLNW is all about CDN, and that’s all it does, and it does it better than anyone else it, across the first mile, middle mile, and last mile. Keep it simple. This eliminates confusion as to what LLNW does. As of now, it’s hard to tell if LLNW is a CDN, OVP, or a Marketing Ad Agency.
The story would focus on three key areas of the CDN ecosystem:
- CDN Acceleration or High Performance CDN (basic caching)
- Dynamic Content Acceleration or Dynamic Application Acceleration
- Dynamic Mobile Application Acceleration or CDN for Mobile Applications
CDN Acceleration
This option is for customers that push high volumes of content, and want to pay rock bottom prices without all the bells and whistles. This group of customers are usually very tech savvy, can configure their account in the control panel with minimal supervision, and once their up and running, you’ll never hear from them again.
Dynamic Content Acceleration
This option is for customers that are not price sensitive, and value performance above price. They are good candidates for ADN + FEO + DNS Services + Reporting + Automated Rules. This type of customer usually needs plenty of hand holding, as ADN + FEO are complex to configure.
CDN for Mobile Applications
This option is the same as the option above, with the exception that these customers are either eCommerce sites or sites with lots of mobile users. Both types are extremely dynamic in nature. Most browser request need to go back to the web server, or edge that has some sort of business logic. These customers require the entire arsenal of features including mobile device detection, instant purging SSL and so on.