GXS Teams with Akamai to Accelerate On-Demand Supply Chain Visibility Applications


Leading Provider of B2B Integration Services Utilizes Akamai to Speed Applications

GAITHERSBURG, Md. and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 11 / -- GXS, a leading provider of business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce solutions, and Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM), the leading global service provider for accelerating content and applications online, today announced that GXS has deployed Akamai's Web Application Accelerator solution in GXS Trading Grid®. All of the on-demand applications on GXS Trading Grid - including GXS Trading Grid Online, GXS Order Lifecycle Visibility, GXS Logistics Visibility and GXS Intelligent Web Forms - are being accelerated over Akamai's global application delivery platform to ensure optimum performance. During testing, the latency in GXS' application response time decreased by nearly 40 percent globally and by more than 50 percent for users in China.

GXS Visibility services are shared applications used by thousands of trading partners within a supply chain community. With the increase in global sourcing activities, today's supply chains are characterized by wide geographic disbursement. A large buyer may be located in Europe or North America, but many of its suppliers may be located in emerging markets such as China, Hungary, India, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, Slovakia or Vietnam. The unique dynamics of these supply chain services create a technology challenge, in that the applications are hosted in a centralized location, but accessed by users around the world with varying communications links (e.g., dial-up and broadband). With Akamai Web Application Accelerator, GXS applications perform with high performance and availability as if they are globally replicated even when being served from a single centralized data center.

"Supply chains have evolved into global networks of contract manufacturers and freight forwarders. Our Trading Grid services need to be easily accessible no matter where they are being accessed - whether by a supplier in China or a buyer in Western Europe," said Steve Keifer, vice president of product and industry marketing at GXS. "Akamai's Web Application Accelerator solution has significantly enhanced the customer experience for customers and end-users around the world. It is our goal to continually innovate and improve upon our already best-of-breed offerings. Adding Akamai to GXS Trading Grid is a significant step in that on-going process."

Akamai's Web Application Accelerator combines Akamai's high performance communications protocol with massive global scale and unique capabilities to route Internet traffic around points of congestion to deliver high-performing applications for software-as-a-service providers and enterprise customers. For example, during testing, the average purchase order-to-invoice transaction time for a customer in China using GXS Order Lifecycle Visibility was reduced by more than 50 percent with Akamai Web Application Accelerator service.

"In recent years, the Internet has become the core component of today's global supply chain. Companies are seeking on-demand applications to ensure the automation, efficiency and growth of their supply chains for competitive advantage," said Willie M. Tejada, vice president of APS Product Line for Akamai. "We're excited to partner with GXS to accelerate one of the fastest, most robust on-demand supply chain platforms. GXS is a thought leader who understands that the delivery of fast, secure and more reliable applications correlates to greater utilization and adoption, both by enterprise customers and their supply chain partners, ensuring success for all parties involved."

The integration of Akamai's Web Application Accelerator service within GXS Trading Grid solution is part of a larger GXS initiative to improve the availability and performance of the company's B2B integration and visibility applications. In February, GXS announced its GXS Trading Grid Ultra infrastructure, which offers on-demand capacity for traffic spikes and quick recovery from unplanned interruptions. Built on a blade-server architecture and supported by a high-speed switching fabric spanning GXS' global data centers, GXS Trading Grid Ultra infrastructure raises the bar on service availability and performance within data centers and also features a unique and innovative dual-continent failover capability for use in disaster recovery. Additional benefits of Trading Grid Ultra include on-demand capacity for traffic spikes; quick recovery from an unplanned interruption; improved storage systems with pro-active monitoring and error detection tools; and redundant hardware components with no single point of failure.

GXS Trading Grid is a global B2B e-commerce and integration platform that supports the creation and adoption of on-demand supply chain management solutions for companies of any size. As the world's largest electronic business community, GXS Trading Grid is used by more than 35,000 customers to exchange goods and services, gain visibility into global logistics operations and to synchronize product data. GXS Trading Grid helps customers automate global trading communities by shielding complexity from rapidly changing standards, eliminating manual and duplicative processes and enabling the highest levels of B2B integration and collaboration.

Akamai's fully-managed Web Application Accelerator service enables secure acceleration of dynamic, highly-interactive B2B Web applications, which can enable greater adoption through improved performance, higher availability and an enhanced worldwide user experience. Akamai's services are designed to provide consistent application performance, regardless of where users are located, and deliver capacity on-demand without investments in additional infrastructure.

About Akamai

Akamai® is the leading global service provider for accelerating content and applications online. Thousands of 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.

About GXS

GXS is a leading global provider of B2B e-commerce solutions that simplify and enhance business process integration, synchronization and collaboration among trading partners. Organizations worldwide, including 75 percent of the Fortune 500, leverage the GXS Trading Grid® to extend supply networks, optimize product launches, automate warehouse receiving, manage electronic payments and gain supply chain visibility. With an unmatched global presence, proven trading partner management and B2B outsourcing services, GXS' on-demand solutions maximize the benefits of integration for businesses. Based in Gaithersburg, Md., GXS' extensive global network serves customers throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific regions. GXS can be found on the Web at www.gxs.com.

Source: GXS; Akamai

CONTACT: Allison Tobin of GXS, +1-301-340-4988, allison.tobin@gxs.com, or Joan Powell of Akamai Technologies, +1-650-292-8422, jopowell@akamai.com

Web site: www.gxs.com/
http://www.akamai.com/

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