San Francisco-based content delivery network Digital Island Inc. made its first significant move Thursday under the aegis of Cable & Wireless

San Francisco-based content delivery network Digital Island Inc. made its first significant move Thursday under the aegis of Cable & Wireless, the British telecommunications power that bought it in August for $340 million in cash. The new offering is called 2Way Web Services and, at a time when companies' wallets are considerably lighter than they were two years ago when Digital Island's CDN service footprint was great, it is designed to host and manage Web infrastructure services for enterprises. Firms will embrace this offering, Digital Island hopes, because they will be able to increase the profitability and performance while shaving the cost of their online operations. Digital Island, which became a wholly-owned Cable & Wireless subsidiary August 31, plans to mount its new services on its new parent's IP backbone and will manage its hosting facilities. With the step up from its original CDN offerings -- the Footprint Service Enabling Technology -- the company's 2Way Web Services support pretty much any Internet business models, including ad-driven, subscription-based services, online purchase, payment and fulfillment of goods and services, as well as user verification and authentication. That is to say, the services portfolio supports all types of transaction applications that require end users to exchange content and require both edge and/or decentralized computing resources from a content delivery network and/or from managed hosting facilities, and a private global network. 2Way Web is separated into three packages -- one for transactions, one for content delivery and one for content management -- all of which aim to serve businesses audio and video media much the way Digital Island served them when it jockeyed for CDN delivery dominance with Akamai Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM) before it was acquired. 2Way services are modular, too, meaning other Web services from Digital Island or other companies can be configured so additional infrastructure need not be purchased.