Akamai Strengthens Rakuten`s eCommerce Business

Akamai selected to accelerate the performance for Rakuten Ichiba`s eCommerce
site, offering higher-quality, faster and more reliable customer services
TOKYO--(Business Wire)--
Akamai Japan K.K., a subsidiary of Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the
leader in powering video, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications
online, today announced that its Dynamic Site Solution has been adopted by
Rakuten Ichiba, one of the largest Internet shopping portals operated by Rakuten
Inc. in Japan, to accelerate the performance of its eCommerce site. Rakuten
Ichiba is also leveraging Akamai to help extend its infrastructure by offloading
a large amount of its web content to the Akamai globally-distributed network.

Rakuten is one of the leading online shopping portals in Japan, having a
membership of around 30,000 retail stores online. Besides the eCommerce portal,
the company is also operating several online businesses, including Rakuten
Travel, a well-known travel arrangements service, Rakuten Books, an online
bookstore, Rakuten KC, a credit card and financing service, and e-BANK, an
online banking service. Rakuten Ichiba operates under a system in which each
retail store creates their own setup on Rakuten`s web site, and each retail
store maintains and constructs their own unique homepage in order to sell their
products. These homepages use a large number of images to display and showcase
their products, and there is also an emerging demand for adding rich, video
content to these homepages to engage shoppers and better demonstrate their
product features. With each retail store using a wide variety of images and
video content to create an attractive shopping site, an enormous amount of web
content was stored on the Rakuten Ichiba servers.

As a result, Rakuten needed a solution that could meet its growing server needs.
It has become a pressing issue for Rakuten to find a low cost and convenient
method for offering highly scalable and reliable customer services without
having to make enormous investments in space and time to expand its own
infrastructure. Leveraging Akamai, Rakuten provides improved server capacity for
storing web content and improved reliability and security of client web sites
while lowering the cost of system operations. Rakuten can also accelerate
distribution of their content globally online without having to deploy new
hardware.

Mr. Osamu Kurokouchi, Group Manager of Network Development and Operation,
Rakuten, commented, "As online shopping continues to grow and gain popularity in
Japan, our customers are looking for ways to improve their use of images and
rich media content such as videos on their sites that help engage shoppers and
better describe their products` features. We need to renew and augment our
servers several times a year in response to such increasing customer needs.
However, as it is important for Rakuten to preserve a good balance between IT
costs and business scale, the expansion of server infrastructure was a big
strain on our business, especially considering that the volume of transactions
on Rakuten Ichiba can expand dramatically. Therefore, we evaluated different
services and eventually turned to Akamai for help."

"With Akamai in place, we can spend less money and effort on infrastructure
related tasks. It enables us to re-direct our resources to eCommerce development
activities that improve our online shopping experience and increase our sales,
allowing us to offer more stable, high-quality online customer services to our
customers. Since switching to the Akamai services, we have experienced no
problems at all."

Rakuten is continuously seeking to expand its online business globally into new
markets such as Thailand and Europe. In order to support this aggressive
initiative, Rakuten needs a solution to help reach its customers effectively and
an infrastructure that can scale to meet increasing demand and support
unpredictable traffic spikes. Currently, Akamai is powering the eCommerce sites
for Rakuten Ichiba in Japan as well as Rakuten Ichiba Taiwan
(http://www.rakuten.com.tw/). With Akamai in place, Rakuten will be able to
provide its customers in key international geographic areas a consistent and
engaging online shopping experience.

"We are excited to partner with a top global eCommerce organization like
Rakuten. With the growth of eCommerce globally, it is critical for Rakuten to
provide a fast, reliable online shopping environment for their customers," said
Pedro Santos, Chief Strategist, eCommerce, at Akamai. "With the increasing
number of consumers interacting online nowadays, they have less patience to wait
for a site to load when searching for a specific product. We believe that by
leveraging Akamai, Rakuten can not only accelerate the delivery and performance
of their dynamic site, but can also provide the best possible online shopping
environment for users who expect a responsive and interactive site."

About Rakuten

Rakuten Inc. is Japan's largest online shopping mall, with an enormous array of
merchandise and services across a broad spectrum of product categories, and
serves multiple millions of customers. This one-of-a-kind business offers
far-reaching product assortments ranging from clothing, jewelry, supermarket
foods, home improvement and appliances to travel services, casino services,
music, books, sporting goods and furniture.

The Akamai Difference

Akamai provides market-leading managed services for powering video, dynamic
transactions, and enterprise applications online. Having pioneered the content
delivery market one decade ago, Akamai`s services have been adopted by the
world`s most recognized brands across diverse industries. 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. Akamai has transformed the Internet into a more
viable place to inform, entertain, advertise, interact, and collaborate. To
experience The Akamai Difference, visit www.akamai.com or
http://www.akamai.co.jp.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is an English translation of the original Japanese
version, prepared for the convenience of our non-Japanese-speaking readers. In
the case of any discrepancy between the translation and the Japanese original,
the latter shall prevail.)

Akamai Japan K.K.
Satoko Kousaki
Marketing Division,
03-6702-0100
marketing-jp@akamai.com
or
Akamai Technologies
Helen Yang, 858-404-1436
Media Relations
hyang@akamai.com

Copyright Business Wire 2009