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Apple bringing more of its content delivery in-house, possible preparation for streaming TV

Ben Lovejoy Feb 10 2016 - 5:15 am PT

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When you download or stream content from Apple – be it Apple Music, an app or an OS X update – that content is often delivered by a third-party Content Delivery Network, or CDN. The idea is to allow you to download it from a server close to you to maximize download speeds. It now appears that Apple is moving more of its content delivery in-house, as the company brings more data centers online.

Business Insider notes that Apple’s main CDN company, Akamai, has warned shareholders that it expects to see its combined revenue from Apple and Microsoft more than halved this year. Apple is the company’s largest client.

“Over the last two years, our two largest customers in particular, comprise about 13% of Akamai’s overall revenue. As we look ahead to 2016, we expect these two accounts to still be our largest media customers, and they will contribute about 6% of our overall revenue,” Akamai CEO Tom Leighton said during its earnings call […]

“This seven point change in contribution results from their increased do-it-yourself, or DIY efforts,” Leighton said. 

BI cites this as a further hint that Apple is gearing-up for its own streaming TV service. While the move would make sense either way, recent reports have suggested that the company is hard at work on securing the necessary deals, NFL ‘Thursday Night Football’ among them.

Apple is reportedly preparing to build a second data center cluster in Reno, with a major new one in Ireland said to be on hold following community concerns. The company’s own CDN went live in 2014, and was first used to roll out iOS 8.