Akamai Unveils EdgeAdvantage: A New Platform for Internet Application Delivery: EdgeAdvantage Enables eBusinesses Access to a Broad Array of New Services and Functionality

Business Wire, Dec 16, 1999

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 16, 1999--

Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM), which offers global, high-performance services for the delivery of Internet content and applications, today announced plans to significantly expand its existing services with the introduction of EdgeAdvantage(TM) - a new platform for the delivery of best-of-breed applications and functionality.

Akamai's EdgeAdvantage will enable applications to be delivered from the edge of the Internet, ensuring the same consistency and reliability available through Akamai's FreeFlow(SM) service, already adopted by over 100 of the Web's leading properties. Akamai will deliver its own services based upon this platform and encourage development of third-party services. Akamai expects initial services to be rolled out in the first half of 2000.

Building upon its core technology for Internet content and applications delivery, Akamai is expanding its scalable platform through open standards to accelerate performance of application services and functionality such as: profiling, log analysis, transaction processing, customized ad insertion, new forms of dynamic content, and content transformation. Among other benefits of the EdgeAdvantage platform, eBusinesses will be able to deliver targeted content based upon line speed, geographic region and device type ensuring the richest experience possible for their customers. With its FreeFlow service that delivers content from the edges of the network, Akamai has already significantly improved the reliability and performance of the Web. With EdgeAdvantage, the delivery of applications from the Internet edge will result in similar performance and reliability improvements for eBusinesses.

EdgeAdvantage Delivers a Better Internet

"EdgeAdvantage creates a win-win for both Web site owners and application providers," said George Conrades, chairman and CEO of Akamai. "Today's Internet just isn't robust enough for the demands of eBusiness. Building upon our success in making a better Internet for content delivery, we are now enabling high-performance delivery of applications for our customers. EdgeAdvantage will provide eBusinesses with immediate access to a comprehensive set of applications and tools from Akamai and third parties without the inconvenience or cost associated with integrating technology from multiple vendors. Akamai will also enable these leading application and tool vendors to expand their distribution channels and broaden their customer base."

Currently, eBusinesses must integrate applications and tools from scores of vendors to enhance the performance and functionality of their sites. EdgeAdvantage will make it easier for eBusinesses to deliver more sophisticated Web sites that support vital e-commerce capabilities such as transaction processing. For the majority of companies, this work is a complex, time-intensive endeavor and capital-drain that requires advanced technical understanding, significant up-front planning, and a large pool of experienced in-house resources. And, many small- to mid-sized eBusinesses have been limited altogether from taking advantage of these types of solutions. In addition, for the vendors supporting these Web sites, acquiring customers and keeping them up-to-date on features and functionality is a never-ending sales and technical task.

"With Akamai's solution, we'll be able to seek out the top application and tool providers that meet our specific needs," said Ralph Terkowitz, vice president of technology at The Washington Post Company. "At the same time, Akamai's new platform eases our burden of integration and allows us to focus on serving the most compelling content for our customers."

"As one of the top 10 shopping sites with over one million orders per month, FreeShop lives with the reality that a single second delay can cost 20% of our audience. We instantly saw the benefit of implementing Akamai's FreeFlow system," stated Mark Noblitt, vice president of technology for FreeShop.com (NASDAQ: FSHP). "FreeShop.com is extremely excited about the new services Akamai will be providing. Having access to such diverse application services through a standardized protocol and Akamai's world class account management division will allow us to implement our plans at a speed of deployment and cost that we otherwise could not hope for. The speed of delivery, scalability on demand, and reliability that Akamai has already proven to us makes the relationship we have forged with Akamai invaluable to FreeShop's future success."

Based on Open Standards

An initial step towards offering EdgeAdvantage is an initiative called ICAP - Internet Content Adaptation Protocol - a simple, yet powerful, open standards-based protocol that will enable communication between edge content devices such as Web caches and Internet content delivery services, and application servers. The creation of the ICAP Forum was announced earlier this week, and includes over 35 companies who have expressed their commitment to presenting a draft of the protocol to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) early in 2000. In addition to Akamai, industry leaders who have endorsed the development of the standard include: Cobalt Networks, Direct Hit, DoubleClick, Engage, Network Appliance, Novell, Open Market, Oracle Corp., Vignette Corporation, and many more.