"For many companies trying to undertake marketing campaigns and initiatives online, the issue of bandwidth provisioning and reliability is a huge challenge, especially when their reputation and the success of a campaign depends upon it," said Carlos Ramon, Vice President of Sales and General Manager, International at Akamai. "Akamai's EdgeSuite solutions have a robust and functionality-rich platform to provide the scalability and reliability companies need, demonstrated by AKQA's choice of Akamai for the Forza Motorsport launch campaign."

"Once we had been awarded the contract, we then had to deliver on our concept," said Mark Dawson, Account Director for Xbox at AKQA. "Looking at the solutions available, we realized that a scalable and reliable platform was required with minimal management and input. It also needed to provide the necessary bandwidth and performance. Without this kind of solution, the streaming site we envisioned could not have been developed or been effective."

Having looked at various solutions, AKQA opted for Akamai's EdgeSuite solution. EdgeSuite makes use of Akamai's platform of thousands of servers located globally at the 'edge' of the Internet near to end users. This unique network allows Akamai to provide scalable provisioning to customers with added functionality to help with the management and delivery of online marketing campaigns and content.

"The closed loop Macromedia Flash video we are using for the Forza Motorsport promotion runs for about 30 minutes and we need to plan for around 60,000 site visitors per week, each making a download of around 300 KB/s. Akamai provides all the necessary functionality to meet our requirements," Dawson continued.

About AKQA

AKQA is a global interactive agency that uses innovative ideas and technology to deliver results for the world's leading brands. One of the Advertising Age Top Five interactive agencies, AKQA was also named 2004 Creative Agency of the Year by Media Magazine and twice-recognized as the "Most Respected Agency" by New Media Age. In business for over a decade, AKQA is a recognised pioneer and innovator, providing marketing, customer services, digital product design and e-commerce solutions to clients. For further information visit www.akqa.com.

About Akamai

Akamai is the leading global service provider for accelerating content and business processes online. More than 1,300 organizations have formed trusted relationships with Akamai, improving their revenue and reducing costs by maximizing the performance of their online businesses. Leveraging the Akamai EdgePlatform, these organizations gain business advantage today, and have the foundation for the emerging Web solutions of tomorrow. Akamai is "The Trusted Choice for Online Business." For more information, visit www.akamai.com.

Source: Akamai

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