May 28, 2008

Akamai Selected as a Key Technology Provider for Newly Launched Borders.com

By Anil Sharma, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Borders Group has selected Akamai (News - Alert) as a key technology provider for its newly launched e-commerce Web site: Borders.com.

The new Borders.com Web site brings the bookstore experience online with innovative features such as the Magic Shelf, a virtual bookshelf that allows customers to view book, music and movie titles much as they would browse the book tables, displays and shelves in their favorite Borders store, the company said.

Borders by leveraging Akamai’s Dynamic Site Accelerator, Media Delivery and Stream OS solutions can improve and accelerate site performance and efficiently manage and deliver dynamic, rich media content in the Adobe Flash format on the site.

“By implementing Akamai’s suite of technology solutions, we can focus on delivering great services that ultimately translate into an enjoyable, reliable and engaging online shopping experience for our consumers,” said Kevin Ertell, vice president of e-business for Borders Group, in a statement.

Akamai’s solutions are designed to help accelerate the delivery of dynamic, interactive content on the Magic Shelf, increase the download speed of shopping applications and improve the response time for the display of the entire Web page.

Leveraging Akamai’s Dynamic Site Accelerator would also help Borders to enjoy improved scalability, performance and availability for the highest possible number of visitors without weighing down its own infrastructure.

The Borders.com site also includes original and exclusive video programming created by Borders. With the growing amount of online video content added onto their e-commerce site, Borders needed a high-quality digital media management tool to help them manage their online video assets. With the Akamai Stream OS and Akamai Media Delivery solutions, Borders can easily and efficiently manage and deliver their video content in Flash format, ensuring that their e-commerce site can serve up all the rich media content in a fast and reliable manner.

“As online communities become more sophisticated, consumers are seeking far more innovative, personalized features as part of their web experiences,” said Chris Schoettle, executive vice president, site acceleration, Akamai.

Akamai provides managed services for powering rich media, dynamic transactions, and enterprise applications online.

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.

Anil Sharma is a TMCnet Contributing Editor.

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