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Leading E-Tailers "Akamaize" for the eHoliday Season
Industry analysts have predicted this will be one of the busiest online holiday shopping seasons yet; however, recent reports state that many eCommerce sites will be overwhelmed by consumers. Other analysts indicate that performance and reliability will provide Web ventures a competitive advantage in the 1999 holiday season. Many e-tailers implemented Akamai's FreeFlow service in advance of the holiday season to enhance Web site performance, improve their ability to respond to flash crowds, and prevent disastrous site outages and prolonged slowdowns.
"At Lands' End, we do everything we can to make our products better, from clothing to housewares to our Web site," said Kurt Schlicher, senior Internet technical specialist for Lands' End, a leading direct merchant of clothing, luggage and housewares. "Lands' End invests in best-of-breed technologies such as Akamai's to enrich our customers' experience. We are pleased with the initial results of Akamai's Web content delivery service, which has brought significant performance gains to landsend.com."
"It has been a busy season for Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch. Our site, which enables users to search for tickets, available hotels and shows has been extremely active as people plan for the holidays and the Millennium," said Sean Moriarty, vice president of Internet Systems for Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch, Inc. "With the addition of Akamai's service, we are able to support masses of traffic while having confidence that we can deliver our customers excellent service. We are thrilled with the benefits Akamai has brought to our business."
"We monitor our site continuously to ensure our customers are enjoying the best experience we can provide. We recognized FreeFlow as a valuable technology to support the leading end-to-end customer care experience we deliver," said Shawn Davison, vice president of technology for KBkids.com, the fastest growing online toy retailer. "Since deploying FreeFlow, KBkids.com has experienced consistently faster page loading worldwide. Moreover, we are experiencing increased conversion rates and sales as a result of the performance gains that FreeFlow has brought us."
"eBags.com has been Akamaized throughout the holiday shopping season and as a result, has seen large performance gains - nearly 100% -- in our site's ability to handle image loading, which is key to the quality of online experience we deliver our customers," said Mike Frazzini, vice president, Information Technology, eBags.com, the world's largest online retailer of bags and accessories. "Akamai has delivered other improvements as well. The conversion rate of visitors who purchase merchandise from eBags.com has grown by an increase of .25% and the abandonment rate for our site has decreased. We see Akamai as a critical element in our business."
"Akamai is a great partner in our quest to deliver the ultimate online shopping experience for our merchants, businesses and shoppers," said Dwayne Walker, chairman and chief executive officer of ShopNow.com. "The thousands of businesses and merchants on the ShopNow Network rely on us to deliver optimized system performance and we believe Akamai Technologies has defined themselves as the clear leader in the industry."
Among the more than 100 customers who have selected Akamai's services, following is a representative list of Akamai's e-tail customers:
Ashford.com
Bluefly.com
eBags.com
Ezshop.com
Furniture.com
GiftEmporia.com
KBkids.com
Lands' End
lids.com
marthastewart.com
Mondera.com
Santa.com
SEND.COM
ShopNow.com Inc.
SmarterKids.com
The Children's Place (NASDAQ: PLCE)
Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch, Inc.
Wrenchead.com
"We are pleased to deliver our customers the benefits of enhanced Web performance during such an important time of the year for conducting business," said George Conrades, chairman and chief executive officer of Akamai. "Based on feedback from e-tail customers this holiday season, our content delivery service has enabled them to successfully do business on the Internet in ways they haven't yet experienced. We are excited to hear that our service makes such an important impact on our customers' bottom line."
About Akamai
Akamai Technologies is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has offices in San Mateo, California. Akamai provides a global Internet content delivery service that improves Web site speed and reliability and enables richer, more engaging Web site content. Currently, Akamai has deployed 1700 servers in 30 countries across 100 different telecommunications networks. Akamai (pronounced AH kuh my) is Hawaiian for intelligent, clever and cool.
| Contacts: |
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| Caryn Converse Akamai Technologies 617-250-4661 converse@akamai.com |
--or-- | Jeff Young Akamai Technologies 617-250-3913 jyoung@akamai.com |
GiftEmporia.com, KBkids.com, Lands' End, lids.com, marthastewart.com, SEND.COM among popular retail sites who selected Akamai to support rush of online shoppers
CAMBRIDGE, MA, December 13, 1999 -- Akamai Technologies, Inc., (NASDAQ: AKAM), which offers a global, high-performance service for the delivery of Internet content and applications, announced today that several leading e-tail Web properties have selected Akamai's FreeFlowSM Internet content delivery service for enhanced speed, performance and reliability of their Web sites. Akamai's e-tail customers include highly trafficked commerce properties such as Ashford.com, Bluefly.com (NASDAQ: BFLY), KBkids.com, Lands' End, marthastewart.com (NYSE: MSO), ShopNow.com Inc., Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch, and Wrenchead.com who demand constant site uptime to remain profitable during the busy holiday season. Akamai's FreeFlow service, currently in use by more than 100 leading Web properties, delivers Web content faster and gives Akamai's e-tail customers a major advantage to serve holiday shoppers in a rapid and reliable fashion.Industry analysts have predicted this will be one of the busiest online holiday shopping seasons yet; however, recent reports state that many eCommerce sites will be overwhelmed by consumers. Other analysts indicate that performance and reliability will provide Web ventures a competitive advantage in the 1999 holiday season. Many e-tailers implemented Akamai's FreeFlow service in advance of the holiday season to enhance Web site performance, improve their ability to respond to flash crowds, and prevent disastrous site outages and prolonged slowdowns.
"At Lands' End, we do everything we can to make our products better, from clothing to housewares to our Web site," said Kurt Schlicher, senior Internet technical specialist for Lands' End, a leading direct merchant of clothing, luggage and housewares. "Lands' End invests in best-of-breed technologies such as Akamai's to enrich our customers' experience. We are pleased with the initial results of Akamai's Web content delivery service, which has brought significant performance gains to landsend.com."
"It has been a busy season for Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch. Our site, which enables users to search for tickets, available hotels and shows has been extremely active as people plan for the holidays and the Millennium," said Sean Moriarty, vice president of Internet Systems for Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch, Inc. "With the addition of Akamai's service, we are able to support masses of traffic while having confidence that we can deliver our customers excellent service. We are thrilled with the benefits Akamai has brought to our business."
"We monitor our site continuously to ensure our customers are enjoying the best experience we can provide. We recognized FreeFlow as a valuable technology to support the leading end-to-end customer care experience we deliver," said Shawn Davison, vice president of technology for KBkids.com, the fastest growing online toy retailer. "Since deploying FreeFlow, KBkids.com has experienced consistently faster page loading worldwide. Moreover, we are experiencing increased conversion rates and sales as a result of the performance gains that FreeFlow has brought us."
"eBags.com has been Akamaized throughout the holiday shopping season and as a result, has seen large performance gains - nearly 100% -- in our site's ability to handle image loading, which is key to the quality of online experience we deliver our customers," said Mike Frazzini, vice president, Information Technology, eBags.com, the world's largest online retailer of bags and accessories. "Akamai has delivered other improvements as well. The conversion rate of visitors who purchase merchandise from eBags.com has grown by an increase of .25% and the abandonment rate for our site has decreased. We see Akamai as a critical element in our business."
"Akamai is a great partner in our quest to deliver the ultimate online shopping experience for our merchants, businesses and shoppers," said Dwayne Walker, chairman and chief executive officer of ShopNow.com. "The thousands of businesses and merchants on the ShopNow Network rely on us to deliver optimized system performance and we believe Akamai Technologies has defined themselves as the clear leader in the industry."
Among the more than 100 customers who have selected Akamai's services, following is a representative list of Akamai's e-tail customers:
Ashford.com
Bluefly.com
eBags.com
Ezshop.com
Furniture.com
GiftEmporia.com
KBkids.com
Lands' End
lids.com
marthastewart.com
Mondera.com
Santa.com
SEND.COM
ShopNow.com Inc.
SmarterKids.com
The Children's Place (NASDAQ: PLCE)
Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch, Inc.
Wrenchead.com
"We are pleased to deliver our customers the benefits of enhanced Web performance during such an important time of the year for conducting business," said George Conrades, chairman and chief executive officer of Akamai. "Based on feedback from e-tail customers this holiday season, our content delivery service has enabled them to successfully do business on the Internet in ways they haven't yet experienced. We are excited to hear that our service makes such an important impact on our customers' bottom line."
About Akamai
Akamai Technologies is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has offices in San Mateo, California. Akamai provides a global Internet content delivery service that improves Web site speed and reliability and enables richer, more engaging Web site content. Currently, Akamai has deployed 1700 servers in 30 countries across 100 different telecommunications networks. Akamai (pronounced AH kuh my) is Hawaiian for intelligent, clever and cool.
