Novell and Akamai join to speed up web

Novell and Akamai are to tie together their technologies to help deliver faster content over the web.

The companies plan to integrate Novell's Internet Caching System (ICS) and Content Exchange with Akamai's Akamaizer content delivery technology. Akamai pushes content to areas where they are more likely to be accessed for faster deliver.

As part of the deal, Novell will also offer Akamai's Freeflow Streaming services to its customers. Novell ICS will be able take advantage of Akamai's content delivery network of 4200 servers spread across 50 countries.

ICS is part of Novell's attempt to establish a presence in areas beyond its traditional Netware network operating system market. Recently the company announced an upgrade to ICS that includes a guaranteed connection capability and support for media delivery via HTTP. ICS 1.3 can also push traffic automatically, reporting logs to any location.

Novell hopes the deal will help push it into markets where it does not usually play. Some observers believe the company's goal is to decrease its dependence on its Netware market, which is being eaten into by Microsoft NT and Linux.

Some analysts believe partnerships, such as its recent tie-up with Red Hat to use Novell's NDS directory services, might be the answer, although others are sceptical.

Analysts at researcher IDC believe Novell should be split up and its newer technologies, such as ICS, sold to the highest bidder. "Novell looks like it's in a position where people would look at various pieces of its technology and say: 'We can use that; let's buy it'," said IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky.