Akamai Enhances Web Performance Solutions

Aimed at delivering an increasingly mobile, personalized and dynamic web experience, Akamai (AKAM) unveiled several important enhancements to the company's flagship web experience solutions designed to intelligently maximize site and application performance. These enhancements are driven by the industry trends that have forced both online businesses and enterprises to face new performance challenges, as represented by industry trends including responsive web design and "bring-your-own-device" (BYOD).

"Increasingly, our customers' users are demanding a near instant web experience," said Mike Afergan, senior vice president and general manager, Web Experience Business Unit, Akamai. "What's more, our customers are looking to improve their control and visibility. It is our mission to bring to market the web experience solutions that will help our customers realize their goals in today's fast moving environment. With these exciting new capabilities, we believe we are doing just that. We are excited to see what our customers and partners will do with these powerful tools."

The enhancements made help customers overcome mobile, network and browser limitations that can hinder customer engagement and negatively impact business productivity. Further, new Akamai reports and tools provide greater visibility for companies looking to gain increased control over web site optimization and application performance.  The latest feature enhancements are available now across the company's Ion and Terra Alta solution lines.

"The key business benefit of Akamai's web experience solutions is what they enable, not just what they deliver," said Graham Benson, IT director of the UK online fashion retailer MandM Direct. "For example, the page load performance improvements delivered by Akamai Ion allowed us to implement a single, fully responsive, website design that serves mobiles, tablets and PC's rather than needing to deliver specific bespoke sites targeted at the individual device types.

"As a retailer, having a single site that is device-agnostic ensures a consistent user experience irrespective of the access device that the consumer chooses to use," Benson continued. "This is very important to us. And from a marketing perspective, it increases business agility by reducing the maintenance and development windows. A single site is quicker, cheaper and easier to build/maintain than three separate ones. Finally, the implementation of the Akamai FEO technology toolset has meant that our internal IT team does not need to become browser optimization experts. Instead, they can concentrate on the site's functional components, safe in the knowledge that Akamai will take care of the performance elements of the site."