Digital Island announces Stanford University as new customer for its Global Applications Network; Stanford's HighWire Press to distribute leading scientific journals worldwide, realizing performance gains of more than 160% over the public Internet.

HONOLULU--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 24, 1997--Digital Island, the first global overnet that provides multinational corporations with a single-hop, scalable applications network, announced today that Stanford University will use Digital Island to distribute highly respected scholarly journals worldwide, catapulting the University's HighWire Press to the forefront of global electronic publishing.

A series of international tests by Stanford's HighWire Press has shown performance gains of more than 160% over the public Internet. In addition, the Digital Island applications network was available 100% of the time, compared to the Internet which dropped circuits during transmission or was simply not available in some instances.

As HighWire press plans worldwide expansion, Digital Island's star architecture also preempted the expense and management of mirrored servers in other countries.

Overall, the Digital Island applications network will improve HighWire Press' service to publishers of highly respected Scientific, Technical and Medical (STM) journals.

These publishers include the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Cell Press, Rockefeller University Press, National Academy of Science, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and many others (please see HighWire Press' Web site at http://highwire.stanford.edu).

"Our relationship with Digital Island comes at a time when international expansion is essential for us to successfully compete against larger, established publishers," said Michael Keller, university librarian and publisher of HighWire press.

"Superior performance and high availability are critical as we deploy a virtual local presence in our readers' native languages. Digital Island supports our mission of technical innovation, and significantly contributes to our objective of becoming a global powerhouse in the STM marketplace."

"The demands that Stanford's content places on a network clearly show that Digital Island can improve a publishers' economies of scale and competitive position globally," said Ron Higgins, founder and CEO of Digital Island. "HighWire Press has a vision of the future of STM publishing, and we are pleased to play a strategic role with Stanford as that future rapidly unfolds."

The Stanford trials that led to the adoption of the Digital Island applications network involved two servers outside the U.S. -- one in the UK and one in Germany -- and one within the U.S., all of which were accessed via the public Internet. The fourth server in the test resided on the Digital Island network.

Three different files were tested: table of contents (51 Kbytes), an HTML full-text article (146 Kbytes) and an Adobe Acrobat PDF article (437 Kbytes).

Scientists throughout Asia and Europe accessed the files in a prescribed manner. Clearly out-performing the public Internet, the Digital Island network transferred files 164% faster than the UK and German mirrored servers, and 124% faster than the Stanford U.S. mirrored server.

Moreover, the Digital Island network was accessible 100% of the time, compared to the Internet, which was unavailable in several instances.

Stanford is also in the process of determining other applications to distribute globally using the Digital Island overnet, including the Overseas Study Program, distance education and distribution of the library catalog.

Digital Island will deploy its global network throughout 1997. Digital Island currently has 18 points of presence (POPs) on four continents servicing the United States, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, Australia, France and Brazil. By the fourth quarter, Digital Island will offer direct connections to more than 30 countries.

With the Digital Island overnet, multinational corporations gain a competitive advantage over reliance on the public Internet.

Digital Island's applications network provides direct, single-hop connectivity to local markets worldwide for the economical and reliable distribution of commercial applications. Digital Island is headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii, with sales and engineering facilities in San Francisco. The company is located on the Internet at www.digisle.net .

CONTACT: Digital Island

Sanne Higgins, 808/540-4002

[e-mail]

Irwin Greenstein, 415/228-4162

[e-mail]

or

Stanford University

Jeff Pudewell, 415/725-9713

[e-mail]