Limelight Networks (LLNW) has made tremendous progress in the feature-set department over the last twelve months. In fact, they’re operating like an innovation driven start-up CDN. Twelve months ago, LLNW was trying to be everything to everyone and that strategy wasn’t working. Presently, only Akamai and EdgeCast can be everything to everyone. It was a good move on LLNW’s part to change direction, and focus on the broadcasting sector, a very lucrative industry, where the big boys like Level 3 and Akamai play. In addition, LLNW introduced instant purge, DDoS Mitigation, and a few other features.
For now all is good in the land of LLNW. However, even though the LLNW’s team is busy improving and stabilizing their new features, its time to look toward the future, and act now. The CDN industry is undergoing unprecedented growth in the feature-set department. The new players are inventing new services that confound the old-school CDN mindset. The feature set defines the CDN, and the new features are causing the creation of new business models. The innovation is occurring in three main areas: security, video streaming, and RAN based content acceleration.
What is Limelight Networks RAN Story
This missing piece in LLNW puzzle is a RAN based feature. LLNW has no RAN story as of today, even though the competition is trouncing on this new area of growth. Akamai, PeerApp, Twin Prime and Rev Software have a RAN story. RAN is so important to the industry that Akamai plans on adding 1,000 employees to their new mobile division. What is a RAN based offering? Accelerating content in the RAN is night and day different than accelerating content in the traditional manner. RAN has its own set of problems when it comes to manipulating protocols and latency in the 3G, 4G and WiFi networks. The best advice anyone can give LLNW is “do yourself a favor and acquire a small RAN based company that is servicing mobile operators”. There are a few to chose from. The IoT is only going create more demand for RAN based content acceleration.