There she goes. That was fast. Kwicr just came out of stealth a short while ago and they’ve already been acquired. For Instart Logic, this is a great acquisition-you can never over-acquire great technology, especially when its CDN feature-set related. For Kwicr, this is not good news. This means that their business model was not strong enough to sustain itself long term. Why wasn’t it strong enough? Because Kwicr provided a service which is pretty much a CDN feature. It’s not a good thing when you provide a CDN feature without the CDN infrastructure.

There is a lesson to be learned here. Startups that go to market with a CDN feature w/o actually having a CDN in place are unlikely to get a favorable exit. Another great example was Strangeloop Networks, the pioneer in FEO. Strangeloop provided an FEO service to a few companies, but eventually they didn’t generate enough traction and they got acquired by Radware. Why? Because CDNs came out with their own FEO service. Now FEO is kind of a commodity.

The Takeaway

• If I’m Twin Prime, the first thing I do is get Per Buer from Varnish Software on the phone and have his team build me out a starter-CDN super pronto
• If I’m RevAPM, then I just sit back in my chair and drink some sweet cocoa, because they have a killer CDN in place

Is this the end of the RAN-based CDN business model? No. Its just the end of the RAN-based CDN business model without a CDN.