63rd Annual Cannes Film Festival Leverages Akamai HD Network to Ensure High Quality Video Experience for Global Audience

As a Technical Partner of the Cannes International Film Festival, Akamai, with Inlet Technologies, is enabling high-quality, adaptive bitrate streaming for daily online coverage of the competition

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Akamai Technologies, Inc.

May 11, 2010, 02:29 ET

CANNES, France, May 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CANNES FILM FESTIVAL: Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM), the leader in powering video, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, today announced that online video coverage of the 63rd Cannes International Film Festival will be delivered on the official Cannes International Film Festival website using the Akamai HD Network. With the help of Akamai HD Network partner Inlet Technologies, Akamai will stream content from the proceedings and awards presentations, as well as trailers of films being screened at the event, so fans and film enthusiasts everywhere can experience the atmosphere and excitement of the globally recognized film festival alongside those actually attending the event.

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Daily on-demand video coverage is available at www.festival-cannes.com and video trailers can be viewed at www.festival-cannes.fr/fr/trailers.html. Both areas of the site will utilize the Akamai HD Network for Adobe Flash Platform. Content will be encoded in 8 bitrates and delivered in up to full HD resolution for the highest possible viewing experience.

"The Cannes Film Festival is a highlight of the movie industry calendar," said Suzanne Johnson, Director of Marketing for Digital Media, at Akamai. "Nowhere is the quality of the experience more important than in the delivery of feature length films. The Akamai HD Network lets viewers all over the world enjoy the smoothest possible video experience – adapting to their specific Internet conditions. We are very proud to have been selected to power the video experience for this year's festival."

Akamai is seeing tremendous growth in the digital distribution of film on our network. As the entertainment industry shift towards a digital distribution model, they need a solution that enables a high-quality experience that meets to the high creative standards of movie studios. Akamai customers including are delivering HD quality movies on Akamai's uniquely distributed edge delivery network that is specifically tuned for optimal delivery of HD files online. Traffic across Akamai's network associated with the delivery of full-length feature films has seen triple digit growth since November 2009, which Akamai believes to represent not only an increase in consumer consumption, but more content being migrated onto its platform. Akamai's global network footprint and deep, category-specific experience delivering long-form, high definition video positions the company squarely to create tremendous value in this rapidly evolving market segment.

Inlet's Fathom® advanced encoding platform will be used to prepare all content being streamed from the event. Fathom's speed and flexibility make it ideal for applications such as the Cannes website, which requires quick turnaround and the ability to encode in multiple bitrates.

"We are pleased to be working with Akamai again to stream content from this prestigious event," said Don Bossi, Inlet CEO. "The Festival's encoding requirements this year were sizable, with an unprecedented amount of content being made available for fans. Fathom's fast throughput and automation make it the perfect solution for bringing content of exceptional quality to the Festival's many fans around the globe."

The Akamai Difference

Akamai® provides market-leading managed services for powering video, dynamic transactions, and enterprise applications online. Having pioneered the content delivery market one decade ago, Akamai's services have been adopted by the world's most recognized brands across diverse industries. The alternative to centralized Web infrastructure, Akamai's global network of tens of thousands of distributed servers provides the scale, reliability, insight and performance for businesses to succeed online. Akamai has transformed the Internet into a more viable place to inform, entertain, interact, and collaborate. To experience The Akamai Difference, visit www.akamai.com.

Akamai Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act

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 effects of any attempts to intentionally disrupt our services or network by hackers or others, changes in Inlet Technologies' technology or to Akamai's technology such that they are no longer inter-operable, failure of our services to operate as expected, unexpected termination of Akamai's relationship with the Cannes Film Festival, a failure of Akamai's network infrastructure, and other factors that are discussed in Akamai's Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.