Akamai And Turner Sports Bring Live Streaming

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leader in powering video, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, announced today it will serve as the exclusive live video streaming provider to Turner Sports for the official PGA Championship App available on the App Store. The 91st PGA Championship will be held August 13-16 with 18 hours of television coverage on TNT complemented by four video streams of live coverage exclusively on PGA.com.

The PGA Championship iPhone App for the iPhone and iPod touch supports Turner Sports’ integrated broadcast strategy of combining traditional television coverage with online and mobile components to provide fans with a multiplatform experience. "Turner Sports is known for its innovation in presenting content across multiple platforms, and this is another example of that strategy," said Tim Napoleon, Chief Strategist for Digital Media at Akamai. "Organizations like Turner Sports are leading the charge with live streaming and taking the fan experience to a whole new level to mobile devices. Streaming the PGA Championship live to the iPhone and iPod touch brings a personalized and high-quality experience to even more golf fans, no matter where they are. With increasingly better connectivity over WiFi, we've reached the point where high definition experiences are no longer limited to the PC."

Variable bit rate streaming benefits the consumer by enabling a high fidelity viewing experience at any bitrate - critical for mobile video as viewing conditions vary dramatically between carrier edge networks to 3G to WIFI. Using Akamai HTTP Streaming for iPhone and Inlet Technologies SpinnakerTM solution to deliver live and on-demand content, content owners can enable higher-quality video experiences at near HD bitrates over WiFi and 3G.

"Inlet works closely with Akamai to ensure our live encoding service for mobile applications works seamlessly across the Akamai network to provide for the optimal live video experience," said John Bishop, senior vice president of strategy and business development, Inlet Technologies. "Working with Akamai we are able to provide a smooth end to end process for content providers to make it easier to deliver next generation video experiences – such as variable bit rate streaming."

Microsoft and Akamai Innovate on Consumer Video Experiences Using Silverlight

Microsoft Corp., the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions, and Akamai Technologies Inc., the leader in powering rich media, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, announced plans to enable high-definition (HD) quality experiences on PCs. Akamai will release a beta version of a new service, powered by Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Silverlight, to deliver rich Internet applications via the world's largest HTTP edge network.

Microsoft is introducing new Web server technology, called Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS7.0) Smooth Streaming, that gives consumers instant start-up times and no buffering by adapting the quality of the video stream in real time based upon changing connectivity speed. This enables companies to boost brand awareness and advertising revenues by extending average viewing times. They can also benefit from unprecedented network scalability using distributed HTTP-based Web servers.

"Smooth Streaming is an evolution of proven Silverlight technology that has powered global online events," said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Division at Microsoft. "Our objective has always been to provide a platform that enables next-generation media experiences on the Web. Together with Akamai, we will take that a step further by offering a consistently superior adaptive streaming experience on a global scale."

Akamai will be building upon this innovative technology with a new service, Akamai AdaptiveEdge Streaming for Microsoft Silverlight, which will be deployed across the company's globally distributed network to bring a solution with HD scale to media companies worldwide. The service is expected to be available to select Akamai customers in a beta release in early 2009. Akamai AdaptiveEdge Streaming for Silverlight will leverage IIS Smooth Streaming, which offers a simple-to-manage approach for adaptive streaming, and will be an upcoming feature of IIS7 Media Pack. IIS7 Media Pack brings media-specific features such as bit-rate throttling and playlists to Web servers. This powerful solution is enhanced by the compelling experiences and rich interactive applications enabled by the Silverlight player.

"We've seen firsthand the growing demand for HD online content among our customer base," said Tim Napoleon, chief strategist, Digital Media at Akamai. "In a broadcast model, typically the experience is consistent across 100 percent of the viewing audience. The challenge is that capabilities in the online world vary greatly for each user. Adaptive streaming allows the video to adjust to the audience, maximizing each user's experience. We believe that this technology, combined with an open video player solution that embraces existing development and ad standards, will allow us to offer the scale and reach needed to grow the business of online video."

"Users expect TV-quality video when they go online; anything less just doesn't make the grade anymore," said Will Richmond, broadband video analyst and editor/publisher of VideoNuze. "Especially in the HD era, premium video providers are recognizing that quality is king and as a result are accelerating their shift to more robust delivery infrastructure. And the payoffs are clear: higher-quality video drives longer viewing sessions, greater engagement and improved monetization opportunities."

SEB Group Selects Akamai to Improve Performance

Akamai Technologies, Inc., the leader in powering rich media, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, announced that France-based SEB, a global leader in manufacturing small household appliances, has selected the company to help accelerate the performance of its corporate website designed for Internet users in South Korea. Some of the well-known brands produced by SEB include: Krups, Rowenta, Tefal and Lagostina.

The SEB Group selected Akamai to solve the latency issues the company was experiencing with its South Korea corporate website. SEB realized that in order to support its multi-brand portfolio and sales in Asia, it needed to improve the performance of its South Korean-based website in terms of speed and reliability. In 2008, the company asked Akamai to provide a solution to solve these latency issues.

"Identifying the challenges that SEB faced when trying to get their website in South Korea to perform to a desired standard, Akamai and its global network were well-suited to provide SEB a solution for enhancing the performance, scalability, and accessibility of their origin website without burdening their existing infrastructure," said Henri d'Oriola, regional sales manager at Akamai. "Within four months after leveraging Akamai's services, SEB found the response times for its website in South Korea had improved by 60 percent -- result which helped to bolster their global brand in Asia."

"We are delighted that the Akamai solutions are able to help us effectively address our website performance issues," said Bruno Cailleux, the SEB Group's Internet project manager. "Akamai allows us to avoid network outages, which we identified as a frequent issue in South Korea, and helps us scale up the range and performance of our corporate websites in the Asia region. Akamai has enabled us to boost our website's service quality and ensure fast access to content in a country (South Korea), where Internet access speed has been a high-priority concern for us."