American Eagle Outfitters is relying on content delivery specialist Speedera Networks to make sure its shoppers can quickly and easily view pages and place orders online.
Previously, the purveyor of baggy pants and snowboard sweaters contracted with Speedera rival Akamai Technologies, an AE spokeswoman told internetnews.com.
"Online shopping is a fiercely competitive market, and competition only intensifies during the holiday season," said Ajit Gupta, Speedera's president and CEO. "Speedera takes the performance and security worries out of the equation."
Speedera bypasses Internet traffic bottlenecks by mapping the fastest route to the end user (regardless of their location), even at peak times, such as the weeks preceding Christmas.
Speedera's network is plugged into to more than 1,000 carrier backbones and with points of presence in the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region and supports encrypted content so credit card information can be submitted securely.
"We are confident that this will be our biggest year for online shopping, and it is important that our Web site be fast and reliable for our customers," said Heather Yerage, director of operations for AE, which competes with The Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch.
For Speedera, privately held and based in Santa Clara, Calif., the win adds to a customer list that already includes Amazon.com, Gateway, HPShopping.com and Vans.
The deal also comes shortly after Speedera struck a partnership with image management software developer TrueSpectra to help companies manage their e-commerec sites.
A joint offering, Speedera Dynamic Imaging service, allows companies to crop and resize images as well as add effects like zooming using a simple URL query string. It is HTTP and XML-compliant.
