SAN MATEO, Calif., — May 26, 2004 — Web site speed and reliability are critical keys to success in running an e-business and Keynote Systems (Nasdaq “KEYN”), The Internet Performance Authority®, will now honor and recognize the fastest and most reliable Web sites for performing critical e-business transactions. The new awards program, known as The Keynote Performance Awards, will kick-off at Forrester’s Finance Forum in Manhattan on June 10th. Keynote will announce the first time winners in two finance categories: online banking and online trading.
The determination of the award-winning financial services companies will be based entirely on the weekly aggregated results of two of Keynote’s seven market-leading Web transaction performance indices: The Keynote E-Banking Web Transaction Performance Index and the Keynote Web Broker Transaction Performance Index. Keynote’s transaction benchmark indices for the financial services industry are the only two of their kind and provide the ideal solution for understanding and improving the transaction experience from the end user perspective.
In determining the online banking awards Keynote aggregated data from the E-Banking Transaction Index collected between July 2003 and April 2004. In determining the online trading awards, Keynote aggregated data from the Web Broker Transaction Index collected between March 2003 and April 2004.
Awards will be announced in online banking and trading in two categories: “The Keynote Web Site Performance Award for Transaction Speed” and “The Keynote Web Site Performance Award for Transaction Reliability.” In the coming months, Keynote will announce the fastest and most reliable sites for performing transactions on leading e-commerce and travel and hospitality sites. In addition to announcing the Keynote Performance Award winners, Keynote will have an exhibit booth at the Forrester Finance Forum on June 9th to 11th and demonstrate its indices and additional market-leading Web performance measurement and management services.
“The Keynote Performance Awards are an excellent way to honor and encourage the many people within an enterprise that keep a site running fast and reliably 24/7,” said Arnold Waldstein. “In today’s complex and distributed e-business environment, maintaining optimal site speed and reliability from the end user perspective, especially in an age of increasing cyber attacks of all kinds, is daunting. The winners of a Keynote Performance Award have every reason to feel quite proud. In addition to honoring the sites that have performed so well over time, the goal of our new awards program is to foster an environment of healthy competition among leading sites in a particular vertical and support the overall goal of Web site performance excellence.”
Background on The Keynote Performance
Awards
Enterprises spend hundreds of millions of dollars
each year and untold human effort and ingenuity building their Web
sites, keeping them up and running optimally 24/7 and hopefully
driving an increasing number of visitors to their Web sites. Online
performance is a critical factor for competing successfully in
today’s tough business environment and Keynote’s performance awards
are the first of their kind to encourage, recognize and honor the
efforts of the many people within an organization who work so hard
all year long to run a high performance Web site.
The Keynote Performance Awards are based on Keynote’s market-leading Web transaction performance indices in which Keynote specifies a common end-to-end business process or task that can be measured reliably and accurately at each of the sites selected for inclusion in a vertical transaction index. Speed and reliability measurements are taken on an hourly basis from the 10 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S.
Keynote’s growing line of transaction indices include: The Keynote Web Broker Transaction Performance Index, The Keynote E-Banking Transaction Performance Index, The Keynote E-Commerce Transaction Performance Index, The Keynote Travel & Hospitality Web Transaction Performance Index (includes leading airline, hotel and online travel agency Web sites) and The Keynote E-Government Transaction Performance Index.
Every week since 1997, Keynote has published results for one or more Web performance indices on its own Web site (http://www.keynote.com/solutions/solutions_pi_index.html) and on the sites and in the magazine pages of its publishing partners.
Keynote’s indices are recognized as benchmarks for understanding, comparing and improving Web site performance from the all-important end user perspective. They represent what a typical end user in the U.S. would experience when going to a leading Web site in one of these verticals to search for information or to make a purchase.
Measurement Infrastructure
The foundation for
Keynote’s measurement and monitoring services and its indices are an
extensive network of over 1,600 measurement computers strategically
located in over 100 locations around the world and connected to the
major Internet backbones. These computers accurately represent the
performance that may be experienced by actual end users in over 50
metropolitan areas worldwide. Keynote’s sophisticated operations
center constantly monitors the health and security of these
computers. For more information on Keynote’s measurement
infrastructure click:
http://www.keynote.com/keynote_method/keynote_method_methodology.html
How Keynote Will Determine The
Winners
Keynote will aggregate its weekly transaction
index data and determine the fastest and most reliable Web site in
each vertical category for a discrete period of time. Two separate
awards will be announced in each vertical category: one for “Best
Transaction Speed” and one for “Best Transaction Reliability.”
Keynote will use specified, discrete periods of time over which the data for the sites on the transaction index will be evaluated. In order to be considered, sites will need to have published data for at least 90% of the weeks during the discrete time period. A straight arithmetic average will be determined both for “speed” and “reliability.” The site with the fastest time (in seconds) will be recognized for the “speed” award and the site with the highest success rate (out of 100%) will be recognized for the “reliability” award.
About Keynote
Founded in 1995, Keynote
Systems (Nasdaq “KEYN”), The Internet Performance Authority®, is the
worldwide leader in Web performance measurement and management
services that improve the quality of e-business. Keynote’s services
enable corporate enterprises to monitor, benchmark, test, diagnose
and optimize their e-business systems both inside and outside the
firewall. Over 2,100 corporate IT departments and 19,625 individual
subscribers rely on the company's easy-to-use and cost-effective
services to increase revenues and reduce downtime costs, without
requiring additional complex and costly software
implementations.
Keynote is The Internet Performance Authority due to the company’s global infrastructure of over 1,600 measurement computers in more than 50 cities worldwide that capture and store on a daily basis over 40 million Internet performance measurements, frequent media citations quoting Keynote's Web performance data and analysis and the company’s growing range of market-leading Web performance indices for vertical markets http://www.keynote.com/solutions/solutions_pi_index.html
Keynote Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo, California and can be reached at http://www.keynote.com/ or by phone in the U.S. at 650-403-2400.
Keynote, The Internet Performance Authority and Perspective are registered trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2004 Keynote Systems, Inc.
Public Relations Contacts:
Dan Berkowitz,
Keynote Systems, Inc., (650) 403-3305, dberkowitz@keynote.com
Della Lowe, Keynote Systems, Inc.,
(650) 403-3233, mailto:dlowe@keynote.com