Shape Security wants to partner with CDNs & ISPs. Should Limelight partner with Shape Security, or should it create its own polymorphic code? I say Limelight should create it’s own product, and integrate it into the Limelight CDN platform.
The Co-founder of Shape Security mentioned that other companies will eventually copy their technology, but they have a 2 year head start. I think 2 years is a little too much. Every CDN has 1 or 2 engineers extraordinaire, that can do anything and everything in 6 months flat. I call these engineers “The Neo Engineers”, like Neo from the Matrix. All they see are ones and zeros. I’m sure they could whip out a product like this in 6 months, working 15 hour days. Throw a team behind them, and you’ll see great things happen. And I know Limelight has a couple of these rockstars.
SIEM CDN
The next idea is what I call the SIEM CDN. I discussed it in detail in my earlier post. Basically, Limelight can create a SIEM product, from the existing logging system, and create Splunk like functionality. Limelight can build it from its’ existing logging system, add more features and functionality to it, and make sure that it’s able to collect log data from client side devices.
Then, extract all the data, normalize it, correlate it, and provide SIEM like intelligence to customers, from 1st mile, to middle mile, to last mile. Just imagine, being able to correlate or track a packet from the point of origination, all the way into the corporate domain. Boom, right there, you will leap frog Splunk, RSA Envision, and all other major SIEM players.
Limelight, The Time for Action is Now
Rob, Pete and Nathan, get on this ASAP. These are two billion dollar ideas, that are hot, and in demand. Splunk is about to reach $9B market cap on $200M annual revenue. Plus, polymorphic code / bot-wall is a game changer. You already do both of them, to some extent, just invest a few mil and get 3-5 high end programmers working on each project. After the SIEM & bot-wall is completed, create a sales force for each product line. Let Marketo tell the great story. Limelight, get back to the basics, and go deep into security and intelligence. That is your forte. After you do this, you’ll move into the #2 ranking, right next to EdgeCast. It will be cool to have two #2 CDNs that are neck to neck in our ecosystem.