Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Calls of Note Part 2

- Jefferies thinks the decision by News Corp. to take the content distribution services for MySpace in-house, and Google's purchase of YouTube should have no bearing on Akamai's (NASDAQ:AKAM) forward results.

AKAM shares have been weak recently on concerns that the company had lost MySpace as a customer. While Akamai provides content services for Fox that can be accessed through MySpace, MySpace is not a significant Akamai customer. Google's acquisition of YouTube is likely a non-event for Akamai as well.

think MySpace is a pilot customer of Akamai. Firm's review of the content source servers at MySpace indicate that Akamai provides limited amounts of static content hosting for the MySpace site, mostly video ads, "MySpace Specials", and user images. It's probable that Akamai provides consulting services to MySpace as well, but the entire contract is probably immaterial for Akamai. As such, we think recent investor concerns regarding a spillover effect to Akamai from Vitalstream's (VSTR) loss of MySpace as a customer are overblown.

Google acquisition of YouTube should have no effect on Akamai. Firm believes Akamai, at most, provides small amounts of consulting services to YouTube. Therefore, any decision by Google to content distribution in-house will likely be a non-event for Akamai.

Maintains Buy and $59 tgt.

Notablecalls: Maybe it's just that AKAM has had its run? Of course, the story is far from broken but stocks tend to top before the actual slowdown happens. From a trading perspective, I don't think AKAM will bounce on this call.

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