Handheld maker Handspring will use Speedera's content delivery network (CDN) to improve the performance and availability of its Web site, which sees traffic quadruple during product launches.
"Instead of having to build out our site internally, we outsourced Web content delivery to Speedera at a fraction of the cost.," said Bill Slakey, CFO of Mountain View, Calif-based Handspring. "We are prepared to handle traffic surges and we don't have to worry about over- or under-building our infrastructure."
Financial terms were not disclosed. But for Handspring, as well as other vendors with e-commerce operations, ensuring that potential customers can get on the site, select a product and buy it without a glitch, means saving sales. Shoppers met with unavailable pages or excessive download times often abandon shopping cart and may jump to a rival's site.
"With the approaching holiday season predicted to be the most competitive to date, retailers cannot afford to provide a less-than-stellar online shopping experience," said Ajit Gupta, CEO and co-founder of Speedera Networks.
Speedera's technology routes content to the fastest available edge server on its distributed network to minimize delays. Other users of the Speedera service include Amazon.com, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard and Hitachi.
The Santa Clara, Calif., company's primary competitor is Akamai Technologies. There is no love lost between the companies, which battled over unfair trade practices earlier this year. Speedera even openly courts Akamai customers through a link on its Web site.
The company declined comment on the status of its legal actions with Akamai.
The CDN industry has experienced consolidation in the past two years, however a recent market report from IDC calls for the industry to grow from $280 million in 2001 to slightly more than $2 billion by 2006. In addition to retailers, online media companies and government agencies are users of CDN technology.
