Akamai HD Network Simplifies Streaming of Standards-Based Video to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch

-- Akamai offering "in the network" packaging of H.264 and MPEG4 encoded video on demand for viewing on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch

-- Content owners can now more easily reach audiences on more than 120 million iOS devices without changing their existing workflow

News provided by

Akamai Technologies

Sep 09, 2010, 06:30 ET

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Akamai Technologies (Nasdaq: AKAM), the leading provider of cloud optimization services, today announced new capabilities for its HD for iPhone solution designed to simplify delivery of standards-based, on-demand video to iPhone®, iPad™ and iPod touch®. Known as "in the network" packaging, this capability will let content providers leverage their existing H.264 and MPEG4 video workflows and automatically package their content to the format required for playback on iOS™ devices.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100225/AKAMAILOGO )

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100225/AKAMAILOGO )

These new capabilities provide a solution that is designed to help customers deliver more content, more effectively, to the growing number of iOS devices. Akamai has architected this new functionality with a goal of providing the following benefits to customers:

Industry-leading quality, performance and scale for on-demand streaming to iOS devices
Servers closer to end users enable higher bit rates and faster video startup times
"In the network" segmenting optimized for Akamai's global network
Simplified delivery of standards-based content to iOS devices
Leverages existing standard video content such as H.264 and MPEG4 video
"In the network" packaging and encryption reduces the need for additional investments in hardware and infrastructure
A complete solution for delivering video to iOS devices
Easy to use frameworks for iOS and HTML5 simplify video player and application development
Quality of service monitoring tools give customers insight into video performance, delivering actionable and relevant data in the language and context of their businesses
Multi-layered security to protect content

"Reaching growing audiences on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch is now business-critical for our customers," said Rich Kennelly, Vice President Media at Akamai. "Our focus is to ensure each viewer gets the highest quality experience possible leveraging the Akamai HD Network, while making it easier for customers to reach these growing platforms with more of their content. We accomplish this through Akamai's "in the network" packaging. In a nutshell, companies provide Akamai with standard H.264 and MPEG4 video on demand content, and we deliver it to iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. It's that simple."

According to Akamai customers, offering portable video on iPhone and iPad is an extremely important part of their distribution strategy. Akamai's HD Network was developed with the goal of delivering the highest quality experience at broadcast audience scale(1) across the industry's most popular devices, platforms and runtimes. Akamai's "in the network" packaging capabilities will represent the continued evolution of the Akamai HD Network, making it easier to get more content to more iOS devices. In addition, Akamai expects to offer capabilities to encrypt content "in the network," providing customers with an easy-to-use solution for encrypting video content delivered to iOS devices. Akamai is actively engaging with select customers and plans to make the service more broadly available later in the year.

About Akamai

Akamai® provides market-leading, cloud-based services for optimizing Web and mobile content and applications, online HD video, and secure e-commerce. Combining highly-distributed, energy-efficient computing with intelligent software, Akamai's global platform is transforming the cloud into a more viable place to inform, entertain, advertise, transact and collaborate. To learn how the world's leading enterprises are optimizing their business in the cloud, please visit www.akamai.com and follow @Akamai on Twitter.

(1) Defined as the average Nielsen audience

iPhone®, iPad™, iPod touch® and iOS™ are trademarks of Apple Computer and are used for descriptive purposes only and not to imply endorsement by Apple Computer of Akamai services or technology.

This 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, inability to develop future capabilities discussed in the release, changes in Apple's technology or to Akamai's technology such that such technologies are no longer inter-operable, failure of customers to enjoy the benefits anticipated to derive from the new features discussed, failure of markets to develop as Akamai expects, 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.