Akamai and IBM Announce Strategic Alliance to Improve Web Performance

Business Wire, Jan 27, 2000

Business Editors

SOMERS, N.Y. and CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--January 27, 2000

IBM Becomes Systems Integrator and Reseller of Akamai Services;

Akamai Selects IBM Netfinity Enterprise-class Servers

for Global Deployment

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) today announced a strategic agreement to establish a set of services that will dramatically speed delivery of content over the Web.

As part of a broad alliance between the companies, IBM will use Akamai's technology to build a set of systems integration and application development services to speed and more smoothly handle unpredictable demands on Web sites. Additionally, IBM Global Services, a world leader in Web hosting and integration, becomes the largest company to resell and integrate Akamai's FreeFlowSM service, a global, high performance service for the delivery of Internet content and applications.

The companies also announced that Akamai will purchase and deploy IBM Netfinity enterprise-class servers, running the Linux operating system. As Akamai expands its network's reach, IBM will be Akamai's primary supplier of servers. Furthermore, Akamai will support IBM's standards-based roadmap, known as the Application Framework for e-business, to help customers, partners, and developers get their e-businesses up and running quickly and securely.

&uot;This relationship represents a significant step for Akamai,&uot; said George Conrades, Akamai's chairman and chief executive officer. &uot;As a leader in Web hosting and with its global reach, IBM is uniquely equipped to bring Akamai's services to a whole new set of customers. Now, with one-stop shopping at IBM, e-businesses around the world can speed performance using Akamai's content and applications delivery network.&uot;

&uot;Servicing our e-business customers requires expertise to manage huge traffic volumes and transactions,&uot; said Doug Elix, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Global Services. &uot;In addition to our Web hosting services, Akamai's technology will allow us to deliver to customers entirely new levels of speed and reliability, which are increasingly seen as two of the critical success factors of any e-business.&uot;

According to Elix, IBM is beginning implementation of Akamai's FreeFlow service in customer sites and will use FreeFlow on its own site, www.ibm.com.

About Akamai

Akamai Technologies is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has offices in San Mateo, California, and subsidiaries in Europe. Akamai provides global Internet content, streaming media, and applications delivery services for hundreds of customers, improving Web site speed and reliability and enabling richer, more engaging Web site content. Currently, Akamai has deployed 2000 servers in 40 countries across 100 different telecommunications networks. Akamai (pronounced AH kuh my) is Hawaiian for intelligent, clever and cool.

About IBM Global Services

IBM Global Services (www.ibm.com/services) is the world's largest information technology services provider. IBM's Web hosting business manages more than 30,000 servers in more than 130 data centers worldwide. IBM's Web hosting customers include high traffic events such as Wimbledon, Ryder Cup, and the upcoming Grammy Awards, as well as leading e-businesses including Macy's, JP Morgan, CIGNA, and the New York Stock Exchange.

The release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai's management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, the dependence on Akamai's Internet content delivery service, a failure of its network infrastructure, the complexity of its service and the networks on which the service is deployed, the failure to obtain access to transmission capacity and other factors that are discussed in the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.