Akamai Launches Service

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading global service provider for accelerating content and applications online, today announced the general availability of Akamai IP Application Accelerator service, the first managed service solution designed to improve the delivery of any enterprise IP-based application delivered over the Internet. With the introduction of IP Application Accelerator, Akamai is broadening its Application Performance Solutions portfolio beyond the acceleration of Web-based applications.

The new service provides an optimized architecture for delivering all classes of applications to the extended enterprise, ensuring increased application performance and availability for remote wireline and wireless users. Applications delivered by any protocol running over IP, such as secure sockets layer (SSL), Internet protocol security (IPsec) user datagram protocol (UDP) and Citrix independent computing architecture (ICA) or accessed via virtual private network (VPN) can benefit from this service. Example applications include client/server, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), live chat, productivity, and administration functions such as secure file transfers.

Until now, these types of applications have largely been impacted by challenges associated with performance, availability and real-time sensitivity caused by Internet conditions such as "middle mile" latency and packet loss. Inefficient application delivery can inhibit revenue growth and prove costly to IT professionals tasked with optimizing application performance.

Today, enterprise IT departments are leveraging Akamai's global platform to deliver and ensure adoption of a broad class of applications to an expanded user base consisting of employees, business partners and customers. Companies like AppRiver, Phase Forward and Talisma are choosing Akamai's IP Application Accelerator to optimize the availability and performance of IP-based applications and to realize the benefits inherent in a managed service approach. These benefits include minimizing total cost of ownership and supporting users which lie outside of IT's direct control because there is no need to install, maintain and support client-side software.

"As companies continue globalizing their operations, they need to extend the reach of their business-critical enterprise applications - such as supply chain management, customer relationship management and product lifecycle management - to a broader set of geographically dispersed employees, business partners and customers," said George Hamilton, director of Enterprise Infrastructure for Yankee Group. "The ability to link the extended enterprise with any IP-based application without installing and maintaining more client software reduces administrative overhead and lowers the total cost of ownership."Akamai Technologies Inc.