The Sharper Image, L90, Inc., and HomeGrocer.com Fortify Their Online Brand Image Using F5s' Internet Traffic and Content Management Products

Business Wire, April 11, 2000

Business Editors, Hi-Tech Writers

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 11, 2000

Service Driven and Quality Conscious e-Businesses Employ BIG-IP

and 3-DNS to Help Keep Their Active Web Sites

Running At Peak Performance

F5 Networks, Inc., (Nasdaq:FFIV) the leading provider of Internet traffic and content management (iTCM) products, announced today that The Sharper Image, L90, Inc., and HomeGrocer.com use F5 Networks' Internet traffic and content management products to help ensure that their popular web sites render the highest quality user experience.

F5 Networks' iTCM products help optimize site availability, content integrity, and performance -- key ingredients of customer friendly and service driven web sites.

F5 Networks delivers web site integrity to e-Businesses by providing end users with access to the right information -- when they want it. Over 1600 companies that view user satisfaction as mission-critical to their long-term survivability rely on F5 Networks' integrated, high-performance products that automatically and intelligently manage user traffic and content.

The Sharper Image (www.sharperimage.com) uses BIG-IP to load balance traffic and content across their expansive array of web servers -- housing the company's fastest growing business channel sharperimage.com. The Sharper Image (Nasdaq:SHRP) is a popular and well-known specialty retailer of unique products and original gifts, sold through retails stores, mail-order catalogs, and the Internet. The Sharper Image operates over 90 stores in the United States.

"We want our customers to have the highest quality experience while shopping at sharperimage.com," said Kathryn Grant, Senior Manager of Internet Strategies. "BIG-IP helps to ensure that our site is always accessible, delivers the right content, and performs well, even with high volume traffic like our 1999 holiday shopping season."

L90, Inc. (www.L90.com), a leading provider of Internet advertising and direct marketing solutions, uses BIG-IP to load-balance the serving of over a billion impressions a month on its proprietary ad tracking and serving technology, adMonitor(TM). L90 (Nasdaq:LNTY) also uses 3DNS to ensure that the company's multiple data centers are optimized and immediately serve the requested banner ads and other rich media content requested by its network of more than 130 Web sites.

"Web site availability, advertising responsiveness, and content integrity are the lifeline of our business," said Frank Addante, chief technology officer, L90, Inc. "adMonitor's performance has a direct impact on our customers' brand image, since we're an extension of their marketing and advertising functions. As frontrunners in our industry, we choose to partner with other industry leaders like F5, whose BIG-IP and 3DNS products help keep our network performing optimally at all times."

HomeGrocer.com (www.homegrocer.com) implemented BIG-IP to manage user traffic flowing through the online grocer's popular web site. An ultimate in convenience, quality and service, HomeGrocer.com (Nasdaq:HOMG) sells name-brand items, fresh produce, meats, seafood, dairy products, local specialty foods, health and beauty aids and household items, all delivered to customers' homes in the company's own tri-temperature trucks.

"HomeGrocer.com is all about convenience and improving the quality of life by freeing up your time to do more enjoyable and productive things," said John Stevens, Director of Information Technology at HomeGrocer.com. "So when time-crunched customers come to our site to shop for groceries or other goods, it's important that they have a positive, fast, and easy shopping experience. Whether they shop at 2 o'clock in the morning or at 6 o'clock in the evening, BIG-IP optimizes our site so shoppers can always access the right information, experience good response time, and can check in and out quickly."

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks is the leading provider of Internet Traffic and Content Management products. The Company's integrated suite of high-performance products automatically and intelligently manage Internet traffic and content to improve the availability and performance of mission-critical Internet servers and applications. F5 Networks helps companies avoid the risk of being burdened with ill-performing networks that do not meet end user expectations, while enabling network administrators to better control and predict the performance of their infrastructure. F5 Networks' products are designed to provide a new level of fault tolerance by shielding users from system failure; optimizing response times to user requests and data flow; and cost-effectively managing an organization's Internet infrastructure. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Columbus, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington, D.C., Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, The Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden and the United Kingdom. F5 Networks is located on the web at www.f5.com.