Akamai, Speedera battle widens

Things are getting pretty nasty in the content delivery market, with lawsuits flying fast and furious.

Akamai first sued Digital Island in September 2000. Last December a jury ruled that Digital Island, now owned by Cable & Wireless, did indeed infringe on one of Akamai's patents with its Footprint CDN service. But Digital Island says it no longer uses the technology in question.

Then in February, Akamai sued Speedera, claiming its technology also infringed on Akamai patents. At that time Akamai also accused Speedera of unfair competition due to "false and misleading statements that Speedera has made in the marketplace regarding our network and business," Akamai spokesman Jeff Young says.

Akamai filed another suit against Speedera last month, in which the company claims Speedera, specifically CTO Richard Day, broke into a protected database maintained by Keynote Systems to access competitive performance information that Akamai used to sell services to current and prospective customers.

The lawsuit came after an FBI search of Speedera's offices, including Day's office, in response to a sealed affidavit filed by Akamai, according to Speedera vice president Gordon Smith. Speedera denies any wrongdoing.

Speedera is also suing Akamai for making false statements.

"There is no confidential data that belongs to Akamai. The terms of the license agreement with Keynote makes clear that the performance data belongs to Keynote - not to its customers," Smith says. "Any information that they alleged we obtained is not proprietary. And we certainly did not hack into any secure servers."

However, a check with Keynote puts things in a different perspective.

Daniel Berkowitz, director of corporate communications at Keynote, says that while Keynote does own the data, it licenses out its use only to customers who have subscribed and paid for that specific data.

"You need a password to view data and access it," he says. He wouldn't comment on specifics related to the case.

What are your thoughts on the CDN imbroglio? Send me your opinion at jmears@nww.com

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Denise Dubie is a Staff Writer covering network management at Network World. She also works as a freelance writer in the Boston area. You can reach her at ddubie@nww.com.