Software-As-A-Service Providers Turn To Akamai For Application Acceleration

Akamai experiences significant growth in SaaS provider clientele, such as Autodesk and Satuit, as businesses seek performance, availability and rapid deployment for their mission-critical offerings

Alliance between Verizon Business and Akamai creates comprehensive solution for the managed hosting and acceleration of SaaS applications

CAMBRIDGE, MA - Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading global service provider for accelerating content and business processes online, announced today growing adoption of its global application acceleration services from businesses that offer Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models. Akamai has had more than a five-fold increase in the amount of global application traffic delivered on behalf of SaaS providers from January 2006 to January 2007.

Demand for software-as-a-service is increasing as small and large businesses alike have become more and more frustrated by the lengthy deployment cycles and the costly maintenance of traditional software. For the software-as-a-service model to thrive as a viable alternative to traditional desktop applications, providers must ensure reliable performance and scale of the services model. By using the Akamai Web Application Acceleration solution for secure and reliable application acceleration, SaaS providers can confidently approach any enterprise regardless of their size and geographic distribution while reducing the operating costs associated with IT build-out and performance-related service complaints.

“Autodesk provides on-demand service to 200,000+ users around the world with their industry leading Collaborative Project Management solutions for the building and construction industry,” said Paul Cochrane, systems architect for the Collaborative Project Management team at Autodesk. “Our software is used by our customers to plan, build and operate oil drilling platforms, highway systems and other large public and commercial projects. We rely on Akamai to enable our SaaS solutions to provide the same quality of service no matter where in the world our customers are working. Once we implemented Akamai’s Web Application Accelerator service, we were able to increase the speed of transactions for our application by up to 500 percent, while maintaining consistency of performance in every single one of our markets.”

As companies extend their business models with SaaS offerings, Akamai has seen significant growth in its customer base. Akamai helps customers provide wide-reaching services for a diverse set of B2B applications such as payroll, accounting, sales force automation, customer relationship management, workforce management, human resources, and product lifecycle management, among others.

“Although customer adoption of SaaS is growing, our research has found that many organizations are still apprehensive about service delivery and performance issues,” stated Jeffrey M. Kaplan, Managing Director of THINKstrategies and founder of the SaaS Showplace (www.saas-showplace.com). “Akamai’s Web Application Accelerator allows SaaS vendors to improve their service performance to overcome these customer concerns and fulfill the promise of their SaaS solutions.”

Satuit Technologies, one of the fastest growing providers of client relationship management (CRM) solutions has experienced significant increases in global adoption and application page views since implementing the Akamai Web Application Acceleration solution. “Since starting with Akamai, the SatuitCRM On-Demand platform has had a 30 percent increase in page views domestically, and an even more dramatic increase among our customers in Asia Pacific,” said Njal Larson, senior vice president of Product Strategy at Satuit. “We have offloaded over two-thirds of our application traffic from our origin servers, greatly increasing server performance and processing. As a SaaS vendor, Satuit’s commitment to client satisfaction is the firm’s top priority and Akamai helps us exceed our performance goals.”

Akamai’s Web Application Accelerator service leverages Akamai’s globally-deployed platform to deliver consistent, improved application performance for SaaS consumers worldwide. Many Akamai customers serve their applications to users in over 100 countries. Akamai also helps to improve the end-user availability of SaaS applications by applying its proprietary SureRoute algorithms to avoid Internet trouble-spots.

Akamai and Verizon Business have jointly found success in providing a combined offering for enterprises leveraging SaaS.

“As more companies leverage SaaS, Verizon Business is creating the infrastructure to help them transform their business processes through higher-value IT services,” said Christopher Gesell, director of product marketing for IT Solutions at Verizon Business. “Working with Akamai, Verizon Business is able to provide SaaS companies with world-class IP Services.”

Gesell added, “An application, for example, is hosted by Verizon Business rather than by the customer, and the software or application is delivered over the Web leveraging Akamai’s global network of servers. The power of our alliance creates a comprehensive solution to improve our customers’ business through Internet technology.”

“In an age where businesses need to focus on their core competencies to succeed, we are seeing an increase – from all verticals – to leveraging the Internet and its economies of scale,” said Mike Afergan, chief technology officer at Akamai. “Akamai’s managed services approach allows our customers to avoid infrastructure build out and realize an immediate time to value for their critical Web-based applications. Just as you wouldn’t build your own electric plant to keep the lights on in your house, businesses are lowering their total cost of ownership by leveraging joint solutions from Akamai and Verizon Business. We allow companies to focus on their business and customers, not on the performance and reliability challenges associated with delivering software services across the Internet.”

For more information on how Akamai helps enable the business models for SaaS providers, please visit www.akamai.com/html/forms/thinkstrategies_saas.html.