The inevitable has happened. After spending the past few years winning over techies with its suite of server-tethered services, Amazon.com
GigaOm details the launch, including aggressive and transparent usage-based pricing, no long-term contracts, and integration simplicity.
Traditional players like Akamai
Amazon isn't the type to tiptoe quietly into the shallow end of the pool. It's going to holler its way down the diving board, then tuck up its knees for the mother of all cannonballs.
Market leader Akamai will survive. Weaker server jockeys will not. Limelight, which earlier this year counted on Amazon as a customer, will take a hit. Smaller, privately held companies, and perhaps niche-nibblers like Level 3
Will they stabilize, though? Akamai has had the luxury of snapping up fast-growing competitors in the past. Three years ago, all it had to do was print the equivalent of $130 million in Akamai stock certificates to take over its largest rival at the time, Speedera. It can't pay the tab to buy Amazon out. If anything, Amazon seems more likely to acquire Akamai.
If there's a weak spot in Amazon's attack, it's that some of the Web's juiciest file and webpage pushers, like Apple
This doesn't mean that Akamai's new sales pitch will be "we're not Amazon." However, a new sales pitch will be necessary. When Amazon shakes the tree, all the leaves rattle.
Other chapters in this neverending story: