Macromedia and Speedera Deliver Flash Video Streaming to Spur Interactive Video Revolution on the Web

Business Wire, June 8, 2004

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif. & SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 8, 2004

The "Lean-Forward Effect": Companies Can Quickly and Easily

Deliver Video-Enabled Rich Content Across a High Performance,

Distributed, On-Demand Computing Network

Speedera Networks Inc., a leading global provider of on-demand distributed computing services, and Macromedia (Nasdaq:MACR) today announced the immediate availability of Macromedia Flash Video Streaming Service, powered by Speedera. The service provides companies with an outsourced solution to enable the streaming of high-quality Flash video to Web users across a globally distributed on-demand network. The service, based on Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX and now available as part of Speedera's comprehensive SpeedSuite family of services, enables companies to fundamentally transform video experiences on the Internet.

"Leading media companies, interactive agencies, and companies both large and small that want to leverage the effectiveness of video to provide compelling broadband sites for their customers are turning to Flash video for its deep interactivity and instant-on, no hassle end-user experience," said Chris Hock, director of product marketing, Macromedia. "By offering the Flash Video Streaming Service across its award winning distributed delivery network, Speedera is providing companies with a quick and easy path to implement Flash video today, without upfront capital expenditures on hardware or software."

With features such as instant-on, customizable player capabilities, seamless Web site integration, and the ability to add deep interactivity and context, Flash video content enables a better viewing experience for Web site visitors and content viewers while enabling content publishers to control their branding and look and feel. In addition, because Flash video is delivered via Flash Player, the most widely deployed media player on the Internet, publishers are able to offer the same great video experience across all platforms and browsers, lowering development, quality assurance, and customer support costs.

The Macromedia Flash Video Streaming Service powered by Speedera enables companies to deliver this content more easily and more effectively with the highest quality and reliability, while scaling to provide the capacity to stream to even the largest audiences around the world -- all without having to install and maintain their own streaming video servers.

Speedera has a vast, proven expertise in providing streaming capabilities to some of the world's largest government as well as media and entertainment sites, supporting extremely large numbers of viewers driven to these sites by news events, popular TV shows and even Mars landings. Speedera enables such sites to support streaming everything from Fox Broadcasting's American Idol to NASA's current Mars twin rover missions, which are breaking Internet traffic records for a science event with more than nine billion hits to the space agency's web portal since the rovers landed on the Red Planet earlier this year (peak traffic on the NASA portal www.nasa.gov reached nearly seven gigabits per second in January 2004 alone).

In addition to providing global reach in delivering the Flash Video Streaming Service worldwide, Speedera provides powerful management tools to users of the service through SpeedEye, the company's web-based management portal. Enterprises not only gain a service-based solution for Flash video streaming, they can also take advantage of Speedera's comprehensive SpeedSuite set of complementary services, including whole site delivery, security, business continuity, infrastructure management, and business intelligence.

"Flash video content greatly enriches the user experience and opens up new and creative ways to dramatically alter the way video is played on the Internet," said Ajit Gupta, president and CEO, Speedera Networks. "By integrating Macromedia Flash technology with our SpeedEye portal, we'll provide customers with a robust solution for creating great video experiences while enabling them to manage, track, and report key statistics for their video usage. Further, by distributing Flash video content over Speedera's globally distributed on-demand network, sites can scale to meet the needs of any size of audience anywhere around the world, without delay or interruption."

"Streaming Flash video is a new way to reach out and grab the attention of broadband users who now represent the majority of time and money spent online," said Jon Klein, CEO, The FeedRoom. "The service provided by Speedera creates an astonishingly personal and powerful interactive experience. Because of its business intelligence, our customers know precisely who they are reaching and which messages are resonating with the right audience. Perhaps the best news is that our customers don't have to buy or download special software to access all of our high-powered streaming and broadband content."

The Flash streaming partnership deepens the existing relationship between Speedera and Macromedia. Macromedia has long relied on Speedera to deliver downloads of Flash Player to users worldwide and to track performance, availability and other key site metrics.