Satellite Bandwidth: Saab Selects Fourelle's Venturi to Optimize Bandwidth on Satellite Network

EDGE, On & About AT&T, July 20, 1998

Fourelle Systems, Inc. Thursday announced that Saab Cars USA has chosen its Venturi solution for optimizing bandwidth.

Venturi is a Compression/Caching solution that yields the most cost-effective performance improvement over wide area Internet links, including wireless networks.

With a retail network of 220 dealerships and 20 service points, Saab Cars USA recently began developing an intranet-based Retailer Information System (IRIS). IRIS blends browser technology with AS/400 host processes via a middleware layer of Lotus Domino and Java.

This application is centrally distributed to retail site clients via TCP/IP over a dedicated, high-bandwidth satellite network. However, some incompatibilities between TCP/IP and the satellite network led Saab to Fourelle's Venturi in order to improve performance.

Venturi is perfectly positioned to provide dramatic improvements in throughput on satellite networks," said Patrick Glenn, CEO and Chairman of Fourelle Systems. "By significantly reducing the amount of data transmitted, performance is increased while costs are decreased." Glenn added, "We're extremely proud that Saab has chosen Venturi to enhance its retailer network connectivity."

"Venturi's unique combination of Intelligent Compression, caching, and Intelligent Flow Control technologies makes it the product of choice for improving the overall performance of our retailer intranet," said John F. Jacobs, Manager of Retailer and Field Information Systems at Saab USA.

"Our initial testing across the satellite network revealed severe latency and bandwidth constrictions, but Venturi immediately alleviated those problems. With Venturi implemented, the data traveling across our network is compressed by over 60%, which gives us much faster response times and saves us money."

"Venturi's reliable UDP transport eliminates the latency problems found in using TCP over a satellite network," said Bob Smith, President and CTO of Fourelle Systems. "Furthermore, Venturi prevents TCP's `Slow Start' mechanism from slowing down Internet data over the satellite link. We believe that Venturi will greatly increase the efficiency of the Saab retailer network."

Many companies have introduced products that address Internet/intranet bandwidth optimization and performance issues with either data compression, caching, or flow control alone. However, Fourelle is the first and only company offering a complete solution combining all three technologies.

Fourelle Systems, Inc., headquartered in Santa Clara, provides patent-pending Intelligent Compression, high-speed, multi-level caching, and Intelligent Flow Control technologies that offer a greater, more economical utilization of existing Internet infrastructure resources. With its Venturi products, Fourelle enables Internet and intranet users to access networks in the most bandwidth- and cost-efficient manner possible. FMI: http://www.fourelle.com.

Saab Cars USA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Saab Automobile AB, a fifty percent joint venture between General Motors Europe and the Swedish investment group Investor. Headquartered in Norcross, Ga.,it is the exclusive U.S. importer and distributor of Saab automobiles.