• January 14, 2008

Fresh off its acquisition of enterprise search developer Fast Search and Transfer, Microsoft is rumored to be considering a deal to acquire Limelight Networks, reports blogger Henry Blodget of Silicon Alley Insider. Limelight, a major content delivery network serving online video, games, music and other content, services Microsoft's Xbox Live platform. On Friday, Limelight reported that its fourth quarter 2007 revenues are likely to end up in the range of $29.3 million and $30.0 million.

"Why would Microsoft want to buy Limelight, the unprofitable No. 2 player in the CDN business behind Akamai? It's indeed puzzlement. Here's one explanation," write Blodget. "Microsoft's entire business infrastructure is built around desktop servers and PCs. The entire business infrastructure of Microsoft's most fearsome competitor Google, meanwhile, is built around the wave of the future - "cloud computing" - in which millions of devices interact with vast data centers and server farms out on the network."