Expand Networks' Compass Platform Enables Organizations to Deploy Web Applications; Compass Propelled Continental Airlines to Enable Web-based Applications for Dramatically Improved International Customer and Employee Experiences.

ROSELAND, N.J. -- While Web applications promise to simplify the way business is done, this flexibility and ease of deployment often comes at a cost. In many cases, deploying Web applications must be accompanied with a WAN bandwidth increase to cope with the additional overhead. However, as a part of Expand Networks' (www.expand.com) recently unveiled Expand Compass platform, Expand offers organizations the ability to deploy Web Applications quickly and cost effectively. Expand's application acceleration solutions improve the user experience for Web applications, ensuring their adoption and continued use. To illustrate, Expand is reporting today that customer Continental Airlines has successfully deployed Expand's technology as part of its offshore self-service flight check-in kiosk expansion.

Expand participated this week in The Self-Service & Kiosk Show, held in Orlando, Fla. on February 13-14. Attendees were able to see demonstrations of Expand's Web-based application acceleration capabilities in action on a Continental Airlines self-service kiosk. The Self-Service & Kiosk Show, produced by NetWorld Alliance, is a biannual trade show offering workshops, seminars and exhibits for executives and managers, ranging from senior executives with responsibility for overall customer experience strategy to managers and professionals charged with developing and implementing self-service programs.

"Web applications are particularly susceptible to high-latency WAN links, which can translate into dismal user performance. Although the flexibility and innovation Web services promise are attractive, the implementation costs and poor user performance can make realization of these promises difficult," said Chris Williams, chief marketing officer of Expand Networks. "With the Expand Compass Platform, our customers such as Continental Airlines can accelerate the performance of their Web-based applications to encourage user adoption and satisfaction, while simultaneously removing the cost of upgrading WAN links."

Continental Airlines Takes Expand Networks on a Global Ride

A pioneer in self-service check-in kiosks for domestic flights, Continental began an international rollout project over the past year. When undertaking this global IT initiative, Continental chose Expand as its application acceleration standard, based on the success the airline experienced from its domestic deployment. Now, Expand's multi-service integrated Compass platform provides Continental with the ability to deploy applications that provide fast and reliable remote access to time-sensitive flight reservation and other business-critical information to customers and employees across the globe.

Some of the benefits these Webified applications powered by Expand include:

--Less Waiting: Continental is able to quadruple the number of kiosks per location, ensuring that customers spend less time in line.

--Improved Customer Service: Ticket agents, gate agents and reservation agents are able to deliver requested information to passengers quickly and securely.

--Royal Treatment for Frequent Flyers: Presidents Club lounge representatives can more easily retrieve OnePass frequent flyer information, allowing a representative in a location like Mexico City, for example, to rapidly process a flight change or upgrade for a customer, even though the record resides in the U.S. data center.

--Anywhere Expand is installed on the network, employees have faster access to business applications such as e-mail and the company's internal website.

"Expand gives us a competitive advantage. We were able to roll out our self-service kiosks very economically and can offer our valued customers and employees fast, reliable access to the information they need, when they need it," said Stacey Thomas, senior manager, telecommunications for Continental. "If we hadn't selected Expand, cost and time would have been prohibitive for this international project."

Expand's multi-service platform is addressing key performance issues posed by providing application access to employees and passengers over high-cost, low-bandwidth international circuits. This project was part of Continental's planned IT strategy, aimed at improving the performance of critical business applications across the globe, regardless of the airport's location, while reducing communications infrastructure and operational costs.

"For each circuit where Continental places an Expand Accelerator, the impact is so great that we recover the cost in only three months. Therefore, it was an easy decision to use an Accelerator each time we open a new international location," continued Thomas. "We also rely on the Accelerators' reporting capabilities. The powerful monitoring and graphical reporting gives our executives full application-level visibility into throughput, performance and acceleration for cost-effective IT management."

About Expand Networks

Expand Networks is the pioneer and leader in helping organizations simplify their IT infrastructure while delivering remote offices fast, reliable and secure access to networked applications. This results in improved user productivity and cost-effective IT management. Expand offers a multi-service integrated platform that ensures superior performance for any application over any network. From its headquarters in Roseland, NJ and its global locations, Expand Networks (www.expand.com) serves more than 1,350 enterprise customers including: U.S. Joint Forces Command, USMC Second Marine Expeditionary Force, American Express, Bacardi USA, BMW, Caribbean Sun Air, Carr America, Colgate, Elizabeth Arden, Reed Exhibitions and Target.

Expand Networks, Accelerator, Expand Compass, ExpandView are trademarks of Expand Networks. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.