Few tech companies have been hotter over the past year than Akamai Technologies Inc. Akamai makes sure Apple Computers doesn't grind to a halt when it comes to ensuring all those billions of video
bytes make their way from Apple's servers to users' machines. The tech company represents the rich profits that can be gleaned from making Web traffic run smoothly, by deploying thousands of scattered
servers to ship packets of data efficiently to Web surfers. Akamai's business is booming: It saw sales explode 56 percent in the second quarter, and should see sales top $400 million by year's end.
Its operating margins are more than 30 percent (almost "obscenely profitable" says
BusinessWeek), and its stock has tripled in the last year. If you believe Paul Sagan, Akamai CEO and cousin of
the late, great scientist Carl Sagan, there are billions more to come. Its customers include 29 of the top 30 media and entertainment companies, most of the top social networking sites and more than
half of the top 50 retailers. All of these companies are clamoring to offer services that shore up bandwidth, and Akamai is the company they use to keep things rolling. It now controls well over half
the content distribution market, but competitors are emerging. The biggest threats to its business are giants like Microsoft and Yahoo, which may decide they need to be in the Web plumbing market
themselves.
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