Akamai Accelerates Media Delivery at Starbucks Stores

Akamai
and Starbucks announced a technology relationship that over time includes the
deployment of Akamai-enabled content delivery servers within thousands of
Starbucks stores to provide fast and reliable wireless delivery of digital
music.

Akamai will serve as the exclusive content distribution provider in the

U.S. for the
unique partnership announced last month between Apple and Starbucks. Having
Akamai-enabled servers located within participating Starbucks locations
provides multiple benefits. First, by serving content from within the Starbucks
local area network, last mile access has been reduced to a few feet,
dramatically improving end user performance, and eliminating the expense and
time-to-market of having to increase connectivity in each store location.
Second, Akamai’s technology creates a fast and reliable route for the delivery
of content from the iTunes Store to Starbucks locations.

“The iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store and the exclusive ‘Now Playing’ service in
Starbucks locations are a powerful new way for our customers to discover and
acquire great new music when and where they are inspired by it,” said Ken
Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment. “With Akamai-enabled
servers in our stores, we are able to ensure the highest quality music
downloads while providing a very personalized music experience for our
customers.”

“We are excited about our technology relationship with Starbucks,”
said Paul Sagan, president and CEO, Akamai. “This represents the
culmination of extensive planning, and we are honored to join Apple and Starbucks
in this major transformation of how people discover new music. Enabling servers
within a customer’s retail environment with Akamai’s technology demonstrates
the pervasiveness and agility of our edge architecture.”

Apple and Starbucks are offering customers the ability to wirelessly browse,
buy and download music from the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store at Starbucks locations
onto their iPod touch, iPhone or PC or Mac running iTunes. When a customer
enters a participating Starbucks location, their iTunes-enabled device
automatically recognizes the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store using the T-Mobile
HotSpot network with no connection fee or network login. Starbucks customers
will be able to see the exact songs being played in their store and be able to
access any of the millions of songs in the iTunes catalog. November 8, 2007
will mark completion of the second phase of a national roll-out, equipping more
than 900 Starbucks in
New York,
Seattle, and

San
Francisco with Akamai-enabled servers.