Keynote Systems Announces Its Sites-of-the-Week for March: Five E-Commerce Web Sites Selected for Public Internet Performance Tests

Business Wire, March 1, 1999

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 1, 1999--

Companies With E-Commerce Web Sites Invited to Compare

Their Quality of Service to These Benchmark Sites

Keynote Systems, the recognized authority on Internet performance, today released the identities of five popular web sites whose quality of service the company will measure in March as part of its ongoing Site-of-the-Week program that makes the performance and availability results of selected sites available free to the public on the World Wide Web at http://www.keynote.com. Companies with e-commerce web sites signing up for Keynote's free performance appraisal at http://www.keynote.com/newsfpa.html can also compare the performance and availability of their own sites to the Site-of-the-Week. The web sites whose e-commerce quality of service will be visible for public scrutiny for one week each in March as Site-of-the-Week belong to The Sharper Image (Nasdaq:SHRP), Buy.com, Priceline.com (Nasdaq:PCLN after IPO), Victoria's Secret, a division of Intimate Brands (NYSE:IBI) and Shopping.com (OTC BB:IBUY).

Anyone with a web browser can view the performance measurements and availability rates of the Site-of-the-Week in real time for the current week and compare them to the industry-standard Keynote Business 40 Index. Keynote will also publish weekly several comparative performance graphs for each Site-of-the-Week on its web site at http://www.keynote.com/measures/sotw/sotw.html .

The five Sites-of-the-Week for March are popular online shopping sites that sell goods or services to consumers over the Internet. The Sharper Image is a specialty retailer of gifts and entertainment products. Buy.com is an Internet superstore that sells computer products, software, books, videos, games and music recordings. Priceline.com uses an unusual demand-collection system to sell airline tickets, hotel rooms, new cars and home mortgage loans. Victoria's Secret is a specialty retailer of women's apparel and lingerie. Shopping.com is an online retailer of brand-name consumer products that is being acquired by Compaq Computer (NYSE:CPQ). -0-

Week: March 1
Company: The Sharper Image
Internet Address: http://www.sharperimage.com
Web-Site Software: Apache 1.3.1 on Sun Solaris (Nasdaq:SUNW)
Internet Access: Electric Lightwave (Nasdaq:ELIX),
Sprint (NYSE:FON) and AT&T/CERFnet (NYSE:T)

Week: March 8
Company: Buy.com
Internet Address: http://www.buy.com
Web-Site Software: Microsoft IIS 4.0 (Nasdaq:MSFT)
Internet Access: Exodus Communications (Nasdaq:EXDS)

Week: March 15
Company: Priceline.com
Internet Address: http://www.priceline.com
Web-Site Software: Microsoft IIS 4.0
Internet Access: Exodus Communications

Week: March 22
Company: Victoria's Secret
Internet Address: http://www.victoriassecret.com
Web-Site Software: Netscape Enterprise 3.5.1G (Nasdaq:NSCP)
on Sun Solaris
Internet Access: IBM GlobalNet (NYSE:IBM)

Week: March 29
Company: Shopping.com
Internet Address: http://www.shopping.com
Web-Site Software: Microsoft IIS 4.0
Internet Access: DIGEX (Nasdaq:ICIX)
-0-

"The quality of service of popular Internet web sites varies over time and users' geography," said Umang Gupta, Chairman and CEO of Keynote Systems. "In conjunction with our subscription service that delivers comparative Internet performance and availability data to our corporate customers, we're pleased to provide a public service each week by highlighting a popular web site and allowing anyone to compare its quality of service to an industry-standard benchmark."

Recent Sites-of-the-Week, whose performance graphs from those weeks have been published on Keynote's web site, include the web sites of Xoom.com (Nasdaq:XMCM), FTD, Wine Spectator , TV Guide, a unit of News Corporation (NYSE:NWS), SkyMall (Nasdaq:SKYM), Broadcast.com (Nasdaq:BCST), Network Solutions (Nasdaq:NSOL), America Online (NYSE:AOL) and Siebel Systems (Nasdaq:SEBL).

How Keynote Measures Quality of Service

To determine quality of service for its Site-of-the-Week, Keynote Systems uses its Keynote Perspective(TM) service to measure how long it takes to access and download web pages and their components via industry-standard HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol), the same protocol used by the Microsoft and Netscape web browsers. The measurements are performed every 15 minutes around the clock from each of Keynote's 72 automated measurement locations around the world which are connected to the Internet via T-1 communication lines. This produces over 48,000 discrete measurements of page downloads and availability rates each week for each of the more than 2,000 web sites whose quality of service Keynote measures for its customers. Performance results and availability rates for the Site-of-the-Week and for the Keynote Business 40 Index are available in real time via Keynote's Web Edition software to anyone with a web browser.

Keynote also offers a free one-week comparative web-site performance appraisal against the Site-of-the-Week and the Keynote Business 40 Index, with its Keynote Perspective service, to any company that develops or operates a business web site with a registered domain name and submits an application online at http://www.keynote.com/newsfpa.html .