Akamai, the popular dynamics web Apps company looks set to join the ranks of big companies that swallow up their competition with the tentative buy-out of one of its main rivals, Cotendo.com. An Israeli newspaper has set the rumours swirling that Akamai is set to make a bid of between $300 – $350 million for Cotendo.
This move is of course quite a surprise for it was only a year ago that Akamai joined forces with MIT to pursue a patent infringement case against Cotendo. It’s not clear what came of that suit but it is clear that the issues were sufficiently resolved to pave the way for this potential buy-out.On the face of it, the potential purchase is a sound one; Cotendo is really just a small scale version of Akamai and it currently specializes in acceleration services for dynamic Web apps, performance monitoring, automatic failover, static and dynamic web content as well as real-time reporting and analytics. The acquisition would therefore allow Akamai to broaden its reach and capture more of the market. It would also allow it to take on board big-name clients like Zynga, Vistaprint and the mighty Facebook. Cotendo also has some solid backers and Silicon Valley VC giants Sequoia Capital has so far helped them to raise over $36 million in funding.
No word has emerged from Cotendo as to its feelings on the takeover but industry analysts are monitoring the situation closely.