Aflexi Launches CDN Platform For Hosting Providers and ISPs, Lacks Functionality

Today, Malaysia based Aflexi is pre-launching a new CDN platform targeting web hosting providers and small ISPs who want to enable CDN services across their network. The service is very similar in theory to Velocix's Metro service that was launched last month, but without much of the scale, functionality and support that Velocix is offering.

While the idea of trying to build a network of networks for video delivery is not new, the execution is very difficult and the service only has a shot at making it if enough ISPs and hosting providers sign up to use the platform. Aflexi is selling their platform for $150 a month to hosting providers which enables them to deploy unlimited copies of Aflexi's server software and will be charging ISPs a higher, yet disclosed rate. Clearly Aflexi is not going to make any revenue with that type of pricing model and instead charges hosters and ISPs a "royalty" of just under one cent per GB delivered, based on the volume of traffic they push.

While the concept is an interesting one, the Aflexi platform is missing a lot of functionality and the company is just a handful of folks with no marketing or sales force. Aflexi's strategy is to leverage the co-location and hosting providers resources to sell the service to content owners. The platform does not support Flash, does not come with a SLA and has no ecosystem tools, amongst a host of other much needed functionality. Aflexi is targeting to sign up 20 small ISPs and hosting providers by the end of the year.

While I don't see Aflexi making any major impact on the market anytime soon, CDNs are going to need to develop a software layer to handle the many different pieces of the video ecosystem. And with the number of CDNs that continue to flood into the market, it's only a matter of time before someone starts developing software overlays for CDNs.