An Estimated $17.2 Billion in Lost Web Transactions to be Averted With the Advent of the Global Traffic Delivery Industry.

Business & High-Tech Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 17, 2000

Product That Launches The Industry Is HydraWEB Technologies' Hydra

Global Positioning System, Technology At The IP Level, Which

Absolutely, Positively Guarantees Web Delivery, No Matter What.

Web traffic is going the way of overnight delivery, guaranteed.

The newly founded Global Traffic Delivery Industry will avert lost web transactions that could add up to $17.2 billion this year alone. To guarantee site performance and web transactions, HydraWEB Technologies, the company that pioneered load balancing, has founded the Global Traffic Delivery industry by creating HydraWEB Global Positioning System (HydraGPS). It is the first Internet traffic system in the backbone of the Internet. It is available for alpha trials now and will be available for worldwide deployment in January 2001. HydraWEB has filed for several patents on GPS technology.

According to Raj Sharma, CEO of HydraWEB, "HydraGPS is the beginning of a new Global Traffic Delivery industry which we expect to grow to $5 billion within the next three years. The growth will be spurred by the fact that GTD will immediately mean multi-billion dollar savings for the Internet economy. It will alleviate site failure and broken service agreements between ISPs, hosting companies and major web portals. . And, the technology marks the first time traffic will be managed from the backbone of the Internet, creating an efficient, fool-proof delivery system on the web."

"When we developed load balancing, we knew it was not the answer, rather a temporary fix to web traffic management. The true problem was there was no intelligence in the core of the Internet. We took the past four years to find the system that would make a smarter Internet, one that can globally route traffic, like an air traffic control system. Local load balancing is still needed, but only to do what it was designed for -- local traffic delivery. The global traffic delivery systems, like GPS, will work- hand-in-hand with these present local management systems.

"The web traffic issue manifests itself when a user tries to access a site and encounters what we call the `no page/slow page syndrome'," Mr. Sharma adds. One study from Jupiter Communications found that 75 percent of sites with high traffic levels received complaints from users regarding slow page delivery, and 42 percent of these sites reported complaints from users of pages failing to load. The study also reported that 24 percent of users switch services after any site outage.

"To date," Sharma explains, "service providers' customers have bought an insurance policy by hosting with multiple ISPs and putting SLAs in place. It spreads the risk. HydraGPS will eliminate the need for multiple agreements. It will also eliminate broken service level agreements which are a huge uncalculated cost for the web economy," Sharma says.

"Leading Network Services Providers (NSPs) and Web Hosting companies will be able to implement this technology to decrease site and service failure rates to zero," Sharma continues. "ISPs are going to be able to use this technology as a platform and combine the best-of-breed caching to offer more services like webcasting, video streaming on demand. And providers can now also compete with companies like Akamai and Speedera, which offer a host of web services but do not sell or lease technology. An Internet service provider can now offer customers the technology as well as the services. Plus HydraGPS, unlike Akamai, is an infrastructure solution geared towards dynamic, not static content."

Paul Johnson, Managing Director of Robertson Stephens: "We see HydraGPS as dislocating technology. The solution of web traffic delivery can best be made in the backbone of the network. A zero percent failure rate can be a 100 percent winner in the market."

Todd Raker, Internet Infrastructure Analyst for the Credit Suisse First Boston Technology Group: "With technology like HydraGPS, Internet backbone providers, service providers and web hosting companies can create a new level of reliability in IP services. Guaranteed web traffic delivery has the opportunity to significantly enhance the Internet Performance market."

Paul Pluschkell, Executive Vice President of Sales and Product Development for Global Center, a leading Internet services company: "We have been reviewing GPS with HydraWEB for some time, and look forward to further evaluation. We believe that this technology has the potential to benefit our customers and the market as a whole."

Kevin Trosian, Analyst for Banc of America Securities: "Service providers need intelligent IP traffic management, and we believe the HydraWEB solution differentiates itself from existing devices. HydraGPS technology provides an edge-to-edge solution for global traffic delivery and guaranteed service levels, imperative to the success of both service providers and their customers."

Mr. Sharma concluded, "Until now, web traffic has been handled exclusively at the local and regional level. It has been like running the airline system with ground control and no air traffic control. With Global Traffic Delivery, we now have the equivalent of an air traffic control system for web traffic. It sits high in the core of the network providing the intelligent bird's eye view of all traffic to make the best routing decision. This is a significant step in the evolution of the web economy. We believe that HydraGPS creates a new industry that will do for web traffic what Federal Express did for delivery, guarantee it."

About HydraWEB

HydraWEB founded the Global Traffic Delivery Industry by creating the first global traffic delivery system, HydraGPS (Global Positioning System), that resides in the backbone of the Internet. It marks beginning of guaranteed delivery of web traffic. This unique global view makes HydraWEB well qualified to discuss all issues of web traffic including, but not limited to, guaranteed traffic delivery, traffic management, Internet service providers, web hosting, caching, load balancing, and site reliability. The company's evolution to the Global Traffic Delivery industry was born out of its pioneering of the load balancing industry. The kinds of companies that have depended upon HydraWEB's intelligent traffic management devices include MCI, AP, Dow Jones & Company, Minolta, Inktomi, Monster.com, Bear Stearns, Bridge Information Systems, Juno Online, DLJ Direct, Deutsche Post and Telewest to deliver Web site reliability. HydraWEB Technologies is based in New York City with offices in Boston, St. Louis, Washington, D.C.; Frankfort, Germany; Stockholm, London and Tel Aviv. The company can be accessed at www.hydraweb.com.