Friday, May 23, 2008

origin of companies - Akamai

when u log into ur mail, if u check the status bar of ur browser, u can find this word appearing and disappearing.. akamai.. Akamai is basically a hawaiian word meaning smart or intelligent.

The origin of Akamai..

Akamai's beginnings lie in a challenge posed by World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in early 1995. The father of the Web foresaw the congestion that is now very familiar to Internet users, and he challenged colleagues at MIT to invent a fundamentally new and better way to deliver Internet content. What he probably didn't expect was that posing such an academic problem would ultimately result in a service that is revolutionizing the Internet.

MIT Professor of Applied Mathematics Tom Leighton, who had an office down the hall from Dr. Berners-Lee, was intrigued by the challenge. Dr. Leighton, a renowned expert on parallel algorithms and architecture, has served as head of the Algorithms Group at MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science since its inception in 1996. Dr. Leighton recognized that a solution to Web congestion could be found in applied mathematics and algorithms. He solicited the help of graduate student Danny Lewin, and several other top researchers, to tackle the problem.

Dr. Leighton and Mr. Lewin were joined by other scientists with expertise in computer science and data networking to develop the mathematical algorithms necessary to handle the dynamic routing of content and solve what was, by then, a frustrating problem for Internet users.

Building a Business
These world-class scientists developed a set of breakthrough algorithms for intelligently routing and replicating content over a large network of distributed servers — without relying on centralized servers typically used by Web site owners today. Jonathan Seelig, then enrolled in the MIT Sloan M.B.A. program, joined the founding team, and they began building the business plan that would lead to Akamai's inception.

In 1998, the group entered the esteemed annual MIT $50K Entrepreneurship Competition, where the company's business proposition was selected as one of six finalists among 100 entries. The distinction signaled that Internet content delivery had serious market potential. Akamai obtained an exclusive license to certain intellectual property from MIT, and development efforts began in the fall of 1998.

In late 1998 and early 1999, a group of experienced Internet business professionals began to join this founding team. Most notably, Paul Sagan who was a former President of Time Inc. New Media, a founder of Road Runner cable modem service and who helped launch NY 1 News, became chief operating officer and eventually president of Akamai Technologies. George Conrades, former chairman and chief executive officer of BBN Corp. and senior vice president of U.S. Operations for IBM, assumed the helm as chief executive officer a few months later.

Launching Commercial Service
Together, these computer scientists and experienced Internet professionals founded Akamai, a company dedicated to ending the "World Wide Wait" through intelligent Internet content delivery. The company launched commercial service in April 1999 and announced that one of the world's most trafficked Web properties, Yahoo!, was a charter customer

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