“With Apple having already announced their plans to build its new $1 billion data center in Maiden, North Carolina, folks I have spoken to inside Apple told me that once the new data center is completed, Apple plans to have a more active role in doing their own content delivery,” Dan Rayburn blogs for The Business Of Online Video.
“While this won’t be happening anytime soon, since the data center won’t even be completed this year, it does indicate that over time, third party content delivery networks (CDNs) like Akamai and Limelight could very well lose a large portion of Apple’s business,” Rayburn reports.
“While this might scare some investors into thinking that a new trend is taking place, whereby content owners start building their own CDNs for delivery, that’s not the case. There are very few companies the size of Apple, Microsoft and Google who can spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build out a CDN with the scale and performance that they need, especially when it comes to video,” Rayburn reports. “It is however something to keep a close eye on as we know that Apple has been a long time customer of Akamai and recently, started using Limelight as well.”
Full article here.
I would imagine it will save Apple money in the long term. How much do they pay Akamai etc to serve their content?
Apple bought a never used data center here in Newark CA that was abandoned after the dot boom crash. I don’t know what content they serve from there but I’m sure they use it well.
I thought the point of a CDN like Akamai was to have many small data centers distributed near the data consumers to reduce the “hop path” that data must travel. These act as repeaters from a central site.
Not sure Apple will be doing that from a central site in NC.
Whew, thought at first that said LimeWIRE
Clean them glasses dufus
@¿@
BC
Apple will still have to keep some of Akami and Limelight bandwidth in case of data center failure. And to keep that kind of redundancy-on-demand, they will no doubt have to either route a non-insignificant portion of normal traffic on the others or pay them a significant retainer.
Isn’t it obvious? They’re going to load Jobs’ into it and allow him to live forever within the internet. It’s the Matrix people!
@M.X.N.T.4.1.
LMAO!!!!
Usually data centers are located near cheap electricity and/or massive bandwidth. Apple’s NC site is located near neither and was probably chosen for the tax incentives. This means that this facility is probably not going to be used to distribute video or music a la Akami or Limelight. The speculation is a massive cloud computing facility for the next generation of MobileMe and the upcoming iTablet.
Now, I don’t know much about all this, but …
From what could quickly find via Google
http://www.neweconomyindex.org/metro/part4_page5.html
Seems that’s a pretty good spot for catching The Big Ass Internet Connection™
And the Price is Right™
Location, Location, Location …
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BC
Couple of us were yappin’ about this yesterday here at the other Article on this same General Story
Got to Think Big Folks … DAMN BIG
Apple and Steve not going to do something Half-Ass
Are out to Change the Whole Mo-Fo World
THE WHOLE BANANA, dig ?
Microsoft and whoever else out there, enjoy the ride you’ve had so far, about over
Then Open Wide, cause Apple fixin’ to ream you a new one
BC
I suspect that after the tablet debuts in early 2010, this humongous data center will be the foundation for Apple’s next big thing.
@M.X.N.T.4.1.
Or, like “The Lawnmower Man”.
Again……iTablet is the product of 100% rumor and speculation people.
Don’t be too quick to refer to it like its coming off the production lines as we speak. The more we further the hype, the lower the stock price will be when they “disappoint” the world by not releasing a product they never promised to make.
Isn’t it obvious? They’re going to load Jobs’ into it and allow him to live forever within the internet. It’s the Matrix people!
I was thinking Max Headroom!