I promised to return with some results on our new Akamai/Riverbed partnered SaaS acceleration solution, the Steelhead Cloud Accelerator.First, let’s examine the challenges that SaaS applications add to end-user performance and productivity.  Unlike origin-based applications, a branch user attaching to a SaaS application has unique challenges.  In 80% of the use cases globally, that branch office user is forced to traverse the private WAN back to a HQ or “hub” where Internet access is concentrated.  This “back haul” of user traffic is impacted by all the WAN challenges that Riverbed …

The Next Consolidation Cycle: Software as a Service:
You know, I love times like this.  It’s one of those rare times….When I’m finally right about something.
Trust me, my wife will insist that I’m right about things very rarely.   At Akamai I concentrate on extending the Enterprise infrastructure out onto the Internet and into the public cloud. It’s from this perspective that I clearly see the strong catalyst for Enterprise IT change –and what convinces me I’m right about what I believe is the next consolidation cycle in the space.
Being right about …