SAN MATEO, Calif., — July 18, 2006 — Keynote Systems (Nasdaq: KEYN), the worldwide leader in services that improve online business performance and communications technologies, today announced the doubling in capacity of its flagship load testing service, LoadPro, allowing online retailers and other online businesses to simulate millions of users accessing their Web sites. With this upgrade Keynote is at the forefront of helping online retailers to achieve the highest levels of service and performance, and in so doing, helping to ensure their financial success this holiday season. To highlight this upgrade, Keynote announced the launch of a load testing promotion offering qualified customers a proof of concept load test worth up to $20,000 to demonstrate why Keynote’s load testing services provide unparalleled accuracy and realism. In conjunction with the load testing promotion, the company also issued an invitation to online retailers and other IT professionals to register for and attend a timely and informative Webinar on the subject, “Preparing Your Web site for Peak Holiday Traffic.”
In anticipation of the growing demand for large scale load testing services, Keynote has unveiled its improved load testing network designed to boost capacity and provide wider geographic coverage. Keynote’s flagship load testing service, LoadPro, is now able to realistically emulate millions of visitors and is also able to provide online retailers with an unprecedented view into the shopping behaviors of end users by utilizing Keynote’s proprietary behavioral profiling and abandonment modeling techniques. With the upgrade, Keynote has added three new cities: Seattle, Denver and Miami, for a total of ten locations across five Tier-1 backbones, as well as increasing network bandwidth capacity by almost 60%. For Keynote’s self-service, pay-as-you-go, load testing service, Test Perspective®, testing capacity has doubled to more than 20,000 virtual users.
With the holiday season approaching – Black Friday is only 130 days away and counting – online retailers have a pressing need to ensure that their e-business platform is up to the challenges posed by significant increases in traffic and transactions that occur from Thanksgiving through the end of the year. If their Web site fails to handle peak holiday traffic, they risk losing a once-a-year opportunity. This knowledge is underscored by a recent report from Nielsen/NetRatings and Harris Interactive®, the 5th annual “Holiday eSpending Report,” which states that fourth-quarter sales are especially important to the bottom line of online retailers, with sales of $30 billion in Q4 2005 – up 30% from 2004.
The importance of fourth quarter sales to online retailers is further magnified when considering the overall growth of online holiday shopping. Nielsen/NetRatings reported that in 2005 traffic to online shopping sites on Black Friday grew 29% to 17.2 million visitors, up from 13.3 million a year before. Evidence also points to the fact that the holiday rush begins earlier online than it does in bricks-and-mortar locations. According to a survey of online retailers from July 2005, over 25% of respondents believed online shopping would start in August or September, and over 60% stated they believed the season would start before November 1.
This preponderance of evidence reinforces the need for online business to make plans to test their e-business infrastructure early and often, or risk affecting their bottom line. “Crossing your fingers and hoping that your online business is ready for the holiday rush is not enough for online retailers to ensure that their systems can handle the inevitable increase in traffic and provide a positive customer experience,” said Vik Chaudhary, vice president of marketing and product management at Keynote. “By testing their Web application infrastructure before the wave crashes in November, online retailers can rest assured that they can handle peak load conditions and reap the rewards of the continued growth of online holiday shopping.”
Load Testing Promotion
To assist online retailers in preparing for the holiday rush, Keynote is offering qualified customers a proof of concept load test worth up to $20,000 to demonstrate why Keynote’s load testing services provide unparalleled accuracy and realism.
To learn if they qualify for the free assessment, interested parties should visit: www.keynote.com/sbl_forms/July13_Temp2_LoadtestingPR.html and enter their contact information. Or, they may call 1 (800)-KEYNOTE, or 1 (800) 539-6683, and reference the free load testing offer.
Keynote to Host “Preparing Your Web site for Peak Holiday Traffic” Webinar
Also today, as part of its efforts to assist online retailers in preparing for the rigors of the holiday season, Keynote announced that it will host a timely and informative Webinar entitled, “Preparing your Web Site for Peak Holiday Traffic.” Keynote’s load testing gurus will be leading the discussions – including its director of SLM consulting services and its manager of testing. The Webinar will provide attendees with valuable insights into how to simulate online shoppers’ experiences under varying load conditions and ensure that they will not lose customers, potential revenue -- or their reputations -- due to poor Web site performance. Keynote recommends this Webinar for IT or other business professionals responsible for the success of their online retail platform, along with anyone else within an organization tasked with managing Web applications or driving traffic to online holiday shopping destinations. Among the topics to be covered:
The Webinar will be held on Tuesday, July 25th at 10:00 AM Pacific (1:00 PM Eastern) and some attendees may qualify for a free load testing assessment. Those interested in attending may register for the Webinar at: www.keynote.com/sbl_forms/June06_Emailcamp_Loadwebinar.html.
For additional information on Keynote’s load testing and Web site performance measurement and monitoring offerings, please call: 1 (800) Keynote, or 1 (800) 539-6683.
About Keynote
Founded in 1995, Keynote Systems (Nasdaq "KEYN") is the worldwide leader in services that improve online business performance and communications technologies. Keynote helps approximately 2,300 corporate customers and 11,000 individual subscribers become "the best of the best" online. The business premise supporting Keynote's mission is: "Online businesses can't manage what they don't measure." As an independent and trusted third-party, Keynote provides IT and marketing executives with unbiased benchmarking data, competitive analysis and operational metrics from the customer perspective. This data measures service levels and customer experience of Web sites, broadband services and mobile communications.
Known as The Internet Performance Authority®, Keynote manages a market-leading infrastructure of 1,600+ measurement computers and mobile devices in over 114 locations and 66+ metropolitan areas worldwide that assess service levels and a panel of over 160,000 consumers who participate in interactive Web site tests that assess user experience. These online user experience tests capture customer attitude and behavior to answer the critical "why" behind the "what." Keynote's geographically distributed measurement services, on-site monitoring appliances, competitive intelligence and custom studies ensure that its customers outpace their competitors in online service levels and overall user experience.
Keynote Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo, California and can be reached at 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. © 2006 Keynote Systems, Inc.
Editorial Contacts:
Dan Berkowitz, Keynote, (650) 403-3305 dberkowitz@keynote.com
Josh Danson, Keynote, (650) 403-3264 jdanson@keynote.com