Content delivery player Akamai is buying Contendo, a US-based firm that describes itself as "a fast growing innovator of cloud-based acceleration technologies". Akamai is paying $268m for three year old Contendo, which we would imagine represents a substantial multiple versus current sales.
Investors appear to like the deal, nonetheless. Akamai's Nasdaq-listed stock rose 18.6% to a 6-month high on the news yesterday, driven no doubt by the continuing enthusiasm for all things cloud. Just as significantly, Contendo has been developing and marketing solutions around content acceleration for mobile platforms. This is undoubtedly a big part of the attraction for Akamai, given the way personal and business users increasingly expect to be able to access high-quality video and other rich media, no matter what network they are on and no matter what device they are using.