Akamai Technologies, our Cambridge neighbors, have landed an impressive content delivery deal with Starbucks. The program is set to roll out in San Fran, Seattle, and NYC, and will basically allow Starbucks to serve itunes downloads from Akamai’s local servers, rather than from Sbuck’s central servers (as is the case currently). This shift is said to reduce download time for customers from 30 seconds per song to 2 seconds.

Although Starbucks (and retailers in general) may seem to be an unexpected target for an Internet content delivery company like Akamai, the move isn’t all that surprising given the state of the marketplace. According to business analyst Mukul Krishna, Akamai has led this sector for years, and is only now facing competition from multiple angles. This increased traffic in the space is bound to have at least one positive side effect: the Web Outside is about to become quicker… quickly.

[via Boston.com]

[tags]The Web Outside, Akamai Technologies, Internet content delivery, Cambridge, Mukul Krishna, Starbucks[/tags]