Aberdeen Group Presents Blue Falcon Networks' With Industy Award for Successful Deployment of Its Distributed Digital Delivery Solution With Radio Free Virgin

Business Wire, April 10, 2002

Business Editors/Entertainment & High-Tech Writers

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 10, 2002

Blue Falcon selected for delivering business value, proven success and innovation in Aberdeen's "What Works: Ten Significant Streaming Media

Implementations of 2001"

Blue Falcon Networks, the leading provider of cost-effective, high-quality, easily deployed digital content delivery solutions, has been recognized by the Aberdeen Group, a leading market research and consulting organization, as a winner in the "What Works: Ten Significant Streaming Media Implementations of 2001." The contest highlighted how actual streaming media implementations provided concrete benefits to enterprises and media companies with decreased communication costs and new and incremental revenue streams.

BFN received the honor from the Boston-based Aberdeen Group's Internet Infrastructure Practice as part of its "What Works" report series for the successful, large-scale deployment with customer Radio Free Virgin, the #1 Internet-only radio broadcaster. The bottom-line results for Radio Free Virgin have been a 68% reduction in gigabytes delivered over the expensive CDN networks and if RFV continues to meet its listener projections throughout 2002, the estimated end-of-year bandwidth costs savings will exceed $875,000 with no loss to quality or security.

Blue Falcon's unique delivery solution combines distributed, dynamically intelligent networking with real-time network management. The implementation represents the first time a distributed networking solution for reliably delivering streaming content has been deployed successfully, while significantly reducing costs. The criteria for winning the contest included recognized business value, proven vendor success and innovation.

"The Blue Falcon Networks and Radio Free Virgin case was a contest finalist because it proves broad-scale distributed networking solution works," said Michael Hoch, senior analyst at Aberdeen. "Blue Falcon's BFN Live service reliably, securely delivers streaming content to RFV's rapidly growing customer base -- without the commensurate rise in bandwidth costs usually associated with streaming business models.

For RFV, a radio broadcast company that delivers 60 terabytes of content over the Internet each month, the need to address a cost effective, long-term strategy came in mid-2001. Tremendous customer demand for RFV's content led to delivery costs per listener that were much higher than its advertising income could sustain.

The company's management lead by general manager Zack Zalon, realized that in order to become profitable while still satisfying their growing listener base, RFV would need to both increase its advertising revenue and even more importantly, dramatically cut its per-user costs without sacrificing quality and risking security. Similarly the company needed a solution that would hook into audience monitoring services for third-party verification.

Blue Falcon Networks, based in Los Angeles, was able to respond to Radio Free Virgin's needs. In essence, peers on the RFV network would seamlessly distribute streams to other listeners, thus reducing bandwidth costs. This method ensured RFV of quality delivery, content security, and the ability to cost-effectively scale upwards as the listener ship continues to grow.

The "What Works" report includes an Aberdeen profile of the Blue Falcon/RFV case study. In his conclusions, Hoch comments that together RFV and BFN have "overcome a significant inhibitor to any streaming-related business model: cost-effective, high quality scalability." Hoch goes on to explain that "these two companies confirm the technical viability of distributed and peer-to-peer technologies by successfully addressing the security and audience monitoring concerns that have been raised by Aberdeen and other analysts."

"The solution configured by Blue Falcon allows us to turn our attention and financial resources to building our audience with the assurance that our delivery costs will be controlled," Zalon explained. He went on to echo a statement made in the analysis by Aberdeen, "that Blue Falcon's distributed networking solution is clearly a cornerstone for RFV's continued success."

"We are tremendously honored to have been selected for this award and to have such a great customer such as Radio Free Virgin," said Jay Haynes, chief executive officer, Blue Falcon Networks. "Aberdeen's recognition of our technology deployment with RFV underscores that unlike most competitors in the space, we are actually delivering real and significant value to big content delivery customers through live, large scale implementations."

Aberdeen's study of streaming media implementation will be announced on April 10th. The "What Works" report, along with the full list of finalists and the criteria for the contest, are available at the Aberdeen Web site, www.aberdeen.com.

About Blue Falcon Networks

Blue Falcon provides the most cost-effective, high quality, and easily deployed digital content delivery solutions. With centralized network control, decentralized distribution, and integration with industry leading DRM solutions, Blue Falcon provides groundbreaking digital delivery efficiencies within a securely managed network. Blue Falcon's suite of solutions meets a broad range of digital delivery needs including: live audio and video streaming, on-demand music and movies, and large file and application downloads. The company's target customer base includes digital content providers, traditional/web broadcasters, and Global 1000 corporations. Blue Falcon's rapidly growing customer base includes Radio Free Virgin and Salem Communications. Corporate headquarters are in downtown Los Angeles in the historic Bradbury Building.