Akamai and RealNetworks Announce Expanded Alliance to Deliver Broadband Internet Broadcast Service Worldwide
"We are excited about driving media content to the edge of the network through our expanded relationship with Akamai. By integrating our award-winning RealSystem G2 with Akamai's massively distributed network, we will be able to truly deliver the highest quality broadband Internet media for mass audiences worldwide," said Tom Frank, COO, RealNetworks, Inc.
"We are very pleased to expand significantly our relationship with RealNetworks and believe the combination of Akamai's highly innovative and optimized delivery services along with RealNetworks audience reach, partnership depth, and an outstanding standards-based media system will help to catalyze the future growth of the Internet media market," said Paul Sagan, President and COO, Akamai Technologies.
Akamai's Network and Technology
Akamai's global high performance distributed network consists of over 2,750 Web servers within more than 150 Internet backbones, ISPs cable head ends, DSL providers and satellite facilities in over 45 countries. The scalability of the Akamai network provides an unparalleled reach to support audiences worldwide, on hundreds of thousands of concurrent streams
Akamai's streaming service, FreeFlow Streaming, is built upon Akamai's EdgeAdvantageTM platform that utilizes proprietary algorithms to monitor the Internet on a real-time basis, and make intelligent decisions about the best and most efficient Akamai edge server from which to deliver content to the end user. FreeFlow Streaming incorporates Akamai's proprietary SteadyStreamSM technology that splits encoded broadcast signals into multiple streams sent across the Akamai network, and then recombines them at the edge of the Internet to recreate the streams into their original high-quality format. Based upon demand and network conditions, SteadyStream also has the capability to determine in real-time whether to use satellite or terrestrial networks for the delivery of these streams.
RealNetworks' Broadband-Ready RealSystem G2
RealSystem G2 is the only standards-based, OS-independent, fully scalable and highly extensible media delivery platform. RealNetworks has led and driven support for interoperable streaming media standards such as RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol), RTP (Real Time Protocol), SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) and fully supports industry standard formats and codecs, such as MPEG.
RealSystem G2 is the only streaming media system that supports extensible datatypes -- over 20 datatypes, including RealVideo G2, which delivers MPEG quality at half the datarate, text, Flash animation, still images, and MIDI Music have been deployed. Client-side and server-side plug-ins extend the capabilities of the System: over 170 developers have taken advantage of RealSystem G2 APIs to deliver hundreds of innovative software products and solutions. Through SureStream, RealSystem G2 uniquely supports dynamic client/server bandwidth adjustments to ensure continuity of end-user experience despite changes in bandwidth and congestion.
RealServer 7.0 runs on the broadest set of major server platforms and processor architectures of any streaming media platform: Linux (RedHat, Mandrake and Debian), Solaris 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, SGI Irix 6.2, SGI Irix 6.5, Windows 2000, Windows NT, FreeBSD 3.0, and SCO UnixWare 7. RealSystem G2 is the only streaming media solution to be supported by every major content delivery network for the delivery of narrowband to broadband content.
Over 85%* of the streaming media content on web pages is in RealNetworks formats -- fueled by powerful hosting, subscription, pay-per-view and robust advertising business models and the demands of over 115 million unique registered RealPlayer® users worldwide. (Source: AOL Search)
About RealNetworks
RealNetworks, Inc. (Nasdaq "RNWK"), based in Seattle, is the recognized leader in media delivery for the Internet. It develops and markets software products and services designed to enable users of personal computers and other consumer electronic devices to send and receive audio, video and other multimedia services using the web. RealNetworks can be found on the World Wide Web at www.real.com
About Akamai
Akamai Technologies has headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and offices in San Mateo and Cupertino, California, and Europe. Akamai is a leader in distributed content, streaming media, and applications delivery, serving nearly 400 customers, including over 550 popular Web properties. Akamai has deployed the broadest global network for content, streaming media, and applications delivery with more than 2,750 servers, in over 45 countries directly connected to more than 150 different telecommunications networks and over 300 universities. Akamai (pronounced AH kuh my) is Hawaiian for intelligent, clever and cool.
The release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai's management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, the dependence on Akamai's Internet content delivery service, a failure of its network infrastructure, the complexity of its service and the networks on which the service is deployed, the failure to obtain access to transmission capacity and other factors that are discussed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.
| Contacts: |
||
| Jeff Young Akamai Technologies 617-250-3913 jyoung@akamai.com |
--or-- | Caryn Converse Akamai Technologies 617-250-4661 converse@akamai.com |
| Jenny Sorensen Real Networks 206-674-2374 jenny@real.com |
--or-- | Erika Shaffer Real Networks 206-892-6191 eshaffer@real.com |
- Akamai to Deploy RealSystem G2 Internet Media Solution Across Global Network, Building on Existing Relationship and Expanding Capacity to Deliver Internet Media Content
"We are excited about driving media content to the edge of the network through our expanded relationship with Akamai. By integrating our award-winning RealSystem G2 with Akamai's massively distributed network, we will be able to truly deliver the highest quality broadband Internet media for mass audiences worldwide," said Tom Frank, COO, RealNetworks, Inc.
"We are very pleased to expand significantly our relationship with RealNetworks and believe the combination of Akamai's highly innovative and optimized delivery services along with RealNetworks audience reach, partnership depth, and an outstanding standards-based media system will help to catalyze the future growth of the Internet media market," said Paul Sagan, President and COO, Akamai Technologies.
Akamai's Network and Technology
Akamai's global high performance distributed network consists of over 2,750 Web servers within more than 150 Internet backbones, ISPs cable head ends, DSL providers and satellite facilities in over 45 countries. The scalability of the Akamai network provides an unparalleled reach to support audiences worldwide, on hundreds of thousands of concurrent streams
Akamai's streaming service, FreeFlow Streaming, is built upon Akamai's EdgeAdvantageTM platform that utilizes proprietary algorithms to monitor the Internet on a real-time basis, and make intelligent decisions about the best and most efficient Akamai edge server from which to deliver content to the end user. FreeFlow Streaming incorporates Akamai's proprietary SteadyStreamSM technology that splits encoded broadcast signals into multiple streams sent across the Akamai network, and then recombines them at the edge of the Internet to recreate the streams into their original high-quality format. Based upon demand and network conditions, SteadyStream also has the capability to determine in real-time whether to use satellite or terrestrial networks for the delivery of these streams.
RealNetworks' Broadband-Ready RealSystem G2
RealSystem G2 is the only standards-based, OS-independent, fully scalable and highly extensible media delivery platform. RealNetworks has led and driven support for interoperable streaming media standards such as RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol), RTP (Real Time Protocol), SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) and fully supports industry standard formats and codecs, such as MPEG.
RealSystem G2 is the only streaming media system that supports extensible datatypes -- over 20 datatypes, including RealVideo G2, which delivers MPEG quality at half the datarate, text, Flash animation, still images, and MIDI Music have been deployed. Client-side and server-side plug-ins extend the capabilities of the System: over 170 developers have taken advantage of RealSystem G2 APIs to deliver hundreds of innovative software products and solutions. Through SureStream, RealSystem G2 uniquely supports dynamic client/server bandwidth adjustments to ensure continuity of end-user experience despite changes in bandwidth and congestion.
RealServer 7.0 runs on the broadest set of major server platforms and processor architectures of any streaming media platform: Linux (RedHat, Mandrake and Debian), Solaris 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, SGI Irix 6.2, SGI Irix 6.5, Windows 2000, Windows NT, FreeBSD 3.0, and SCO UnixWare 7. RealSystem G2 is the only streaming media solution to be supported by every major content delivery network for the delivery of narrowband to broadband content.
Over 85%* of the streaming media content on web pages is in RealNetworks formats -- fueled by powerful hosting, subscription, pay-per-view and robust advertising business models and the demands of over 115 million unique registered RealPlayer® users worldwide. (Source: AOL Search)
About RealNetworks
RealNetworks, Inc. (Nasdaq "RNWK"), based in Seattle, is the recognized leader in media delivery for the Internet. It develops and markets software products and services designed to enable users of personal computers and other consumer electronic devices to send and receive audio, video and other multimedia services using the web. RealNetworks can be found on the World Wide Web at www.real.com
About Akamai
Akamai Technologies has headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and offices in San Mateo and Cupertino, California, and Europe. Akamai is a leader in distributed content, streaming media, and applications delivery, serving nearly 400 customers, including over 550 popular Web properties. Akamai has deployed the broadest global network for content, streaming media, and applications delivery with more than 2,750 servers, in over 45 countries directly connected to more than 150 different telecommunications networks and over 300 universities. Akamai (pronounced AH kuh my) is Hawaiian for intelligent, clever and cool.
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The release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai's management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, the dependence on Akamai's Internet content delivery service, a failure of its network infrastructure, the complexity of its service and the networks on which the service is deployed, the failure to obtain access to transmission capacity and other factors that are discussed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.
