Akamai Buys Velocitude to Power Mobile Delivery

As consumers use mobile devices to view more multimedia content, content delivery market leader Akamai is investing in technology to broaden its support for the growing universe of web-enabled devices. Akamai (AKAM) announced Thursday that it has acquired substantially all of the assets of Velocitude, a mobile services platform. With this acquisition Akamai gains mobile content transformation functionality, a complement to its existing suite of cloud services. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"We believe Velocitude has developed a powerful set of solutions to enable optimal mobile Internet experiences across a multitude of different devices," said Akamai CEO Paul Sagan. "By integrating Velocitude into our global network, we will be able to offer customers a way to leverage Akamai cloud-based services for mobile performance, as well as to translate Web sites into specific device-optimized experiences."

Velocitude CEO and founder Adam House Sr. will become vice president of mobile applications, as the 20 person company is wrapped into Akamai's mobile team. The Fort Lauderdale-based company launched about a year ago and provides mobile web sites for Office Depot and AutoNation, among others.

The Velocitude software detects the mobile platform and automatically configures the web site to appear properly on the phone.  The solution is unique in the industry as a software-as-a-service mobile platform that has transformed many top-name PC-oriented web sites into viewable mobile sites. Velocitude's explained that "unlike desktop Web browsing, where you can take time to search through a complex site, the average mobile user is looking to find a limited amount of information quickly. Convenience and speed, rather than breadth of content, define the experience demands of the mobile user."