Akamai acquires supplier of video streaming optimisation technology, Octoshape

Cloud services provider Akamai Technologies has made its second acquisition in a little over a month buying Octoshape, a supplier of video streaming optiminsation technology for over-the-top content.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company had bought DNS technology developer Xerocole in March, saying the deal allowed it to provide better security, speed and reliability in DNS connections.

According to commentators, Akamai's Octoshape acquisition was timely. Octoshape was known for creating efficient transport methods for the delivery of video streams across the internet, using standard media formats and players.

Akamai now was in possession of Octoshape's patents and products, which bolstered its own portfolio in the field of video streaming optimisation at a time when streaming services such as Meerkat and Twitter's Periscope were making deep inroads into the new media landscape.

"We believe this acquisition will bolster our strategy to further the deployment of Akamai software into devices, carrier networks, enterprises, and homes, and to fulfill the promise of an internet that is fast, reliable and secure on any device, anywhere," said Akamai CEO Tom Leighton, in a statement.

No financial details of the deal were disclosed and neither were any details on whether any of Octoshape's 40 employees would stay on after the acquisition.

Octoshape asserted that its use of a proprietary implementation of the UDP protocol (as compared with the more widely-used TCP protocol) helped in the improvement of streaming speeds and lower startup / buffering times, and that its multicast solutions helped lower costs. The company counted CNN, CBS, IBM, BP, and the NBA among its customers.

Akamai, which already handled plenty of video streams through its CDN, stated Octoshape would provide it with "valuable technology and experience in the area of streaming video optimization," and help it "provide customers with the most comprehensive suite of video delivery and optimization technologies."

Give that video delivery was a lower-margin business for the company, the move might help Akamai upsell video clients on higher-margin services.