Akamai Powers Exclusive Private Shopping Website HauteLook

PALM SPRINGS, Calif., Feb. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- eTail WEST -- Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM), the leading provider of cloud optimization services, today announced that its Dynamic Site Accelerator services have been implemented by HauteLook to accelerate and improve the performance of its private online shopping site.  HauteLook has selected Akamai to ensure fast, secure and consistent performance for all site visitors in the U.S. and Canada.  

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HauteLook is a premier members-only site that offers limited-time sale events on the world's top brands for women's and men's fashion and accessories, beauty, kids' items, home decor, travel packages and local services.  Due to the high quality of the products offered and HauteLook's large member base of over four million members, it's not unusual for the retailer's site to be overwhelmed with visitors as soon as the daily member emails are sent out.  Combined with the fact that every page on the site is dynamically generated, the traffic surges put tremendous strain on the retailer's servers hosted in Los Angeles.  HauteLook needed a solution that could scale instantly to support and handle its traffic surges.  Leveraging Akamai's Dynamic Site Accelerator and globally distributed platform, HauteLook can scale securely on demand to support surges in traffic, ensuring that its dynamic content is delivered quickly to all members without the need to build out its own infrastructures.  

Since becoming an Akamai customer, HauteLook has seen a more than 200 percent increase in members and more than 400 percent increase in revenue, and Akamai has provided a critical and seamless foundation of support for this impressive growth. HauteLook has also offloaded more than 95 percent of its content to the Akamai platform, enabling it to handle a high volume of traffic with 100 percent availability.  In fact, Akamai's Dynamic Site Accelerator has enabled consistent performance, even when traffic has peaked at more than 70 percent above average on a daily basis.

"We feel Akamai's expansive infrastructure and advanced technologies are the right choice at the right time," says Kevin Diamond, Chief Technology Officer, HauteLook.  "Akamai has supported us through our amazing growth surge, enabling us to continue delivering a great member experience every day.  As we further grow our business, we want our members to have the same site experience as on day one.  With Akamai serving our content, members can access the site the second a sale event goes live, find exactly what they want, and check out, easily and quickly."

Additionally, HauteLook requires the strictest security measures to protect members' shipping and billing information. By leveraging Akamai's PCI-certified SSL network, HauteLook can ensure its members' data is delivered and managed in a PCI-compliant way.

"Compliance with PCI is essential for us in order to offer our members the convenience of online credit card transactions," added Diamond.  "With Akamai, we gain peace of mind knowing that we will deliver a fast, fun, and secure experience no matter how many people come to our site or what new technology we add."

"Running a speedy retail site and being able to transact at scale is crucial to converting customers in the online retail world," said Pedro Santos, Chief Strategist, Akamai Technologies.  "Especially for retailers like HauteLook, which has a unique business model that attracts high volume of traffic at certain times of the day.  It is essential for it to be able to cope with the traffic surges and deliver a fast, reliable site for consumers.  Leveraging Akamai's Dynamic Site Accelerator services, HauteLook can handle the unexpected traffic peaks, avoid downtime and ensure quick transactions."

About HauteLook

Launched in December 2007 in Los Angeles, HauteLook is a leader in the online private sale space, offering 48 hour online and mobile sale events featuring the best brands for women, men, kids, home, beauty, travel and services. HauteLook hosts new sale events every day, all at prices up to 75% off retail.  In the past three years, HauteLook has attracted over four million members in the U.S. and Canada.  HauteLook is free to join and everyone is welcome.  Visit www.hautelook.com to learn more or follow @HauteLook on Twitter.  

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.

Akamai Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act

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, unexpected early termination of Akamai's relationship with the HauteLook, changes in regulations and laws governing the transmission of payment information, 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.

SOURCE Akamai Technologies, Inc.