Keynote Announces Transaction Perspective 7.0 -- Expanded Suite of Products Includes Last Mile and High Frequency Monitoring

November 8, 2006; 03:15 AM
Keynote Systems (Nasdaq:KEYN), The Mobile and Internet Performance Authority™, today announced Transaction Perspective® 7.0, an enhanced suite of products centered on its market-leading Web site performance measurement and monitoring offering, Transaction Perspective. Transaction Perspective 7.0 includes two key new products -- Transaction Perspective Last Mile and Transaction Perspective High Frequency -- that make it indispensable to businesses that require the most accurate possible view of what their customers are experiencing while interacting with their Web sites. With the introduction of Transaction Perspective 7.0, Keynote has raised the bar significantly in terms of accuracy of measurements, visibility outside the datacenter and overall breadth of insight into the end-user experience. Keynote also announced today a very attractive and aggressive time-limited price promotion designed to switch Gomez and Mercury Web site monitoring customers to Keynote’s new products.

Keynote Transaction Perspective 7.0, based on Keynote’s True Experience™ technology, allows enterprises to accurately, realistically and representatively measure the performance and availability of multi-protocol transactions that incorporate the most sophisticated Web transaction programming techniques in use today, including Ajax, Flash, Java, ActiveX, Web services and digital certificates. Transaction Perspective's advanced measurement, error reporting, alarm and diagnostic capabilities, along with the breadth of its geographic coverage and ability to measure the performance impact of today’s most complex and advanced transactions on end users make it an indispensable tool for managers of online businesses looking to accurately benchmark and measure their overall end-user performance. Keynote True Experience™ technology leverages a real Internet Explorer browser for taking Web site performance measurements and thereby delivers an extremely high fidelity and accurate representation of how actual users are experiencing the performance of your Web site.

With Transaction Perspective 7.0, Keynote has leveraged its market-leading infrastructure of 2,400 measurement computers and mobile devices in over 240 locations around the world to provide the broadest geographic coverage and most representative measurements possible. Keynote’s on-demand, “software as a service” delivery model allows business to access services they need, when they need them to pinpoint and fix problems related to their Web applications before they impact customers.

“In today’s increasingly complex online business environment, operations teams and online business managers are under added pressure to accurately measure, monitor and maintain the performance of critical Web applications and revenue-generating transactions,” said Vik Chaudhary, Keynote’s vice president of marketing and product management. “With Transaction Perspective 7.0, Keynote has provided enterprises with the broadest, most comprehensive set of tools for accurately measuring and monitoring the performance of their Web transactions to ensure that they are able to identify, diagnose and remedy any performance issues before they affect costumer experience.”

Transaction Perspective Last Mile

With the addition of Transaction Perspective Last Mile, Keynote customers will now be able to augment their monitoring from backbone locations with last-mile monitoring of dial-up, DSL, Cable modem and 3G wireless, in order to obtain an end-to-end view of the user experience. Keynote’s breakthrough approach with Transaction Perspective 7.0 is to place measurement computers at a representative set of locations across the globe and provide coverage of DSL, Cable, Dial-up and 3G wireless access to more accurately understand the real experience of different user segments. Transaction Perspective Last Mile is a highly accurate “noise-free” solution because Keynote’s measurement computers are dedicated to making measurements without any background user activity – unlike other solutions available on the market, which rely on software installed on user desktops, thereby negatively impacting measurement accuracy with background ‘noise’. With Transaction Perspective Last Mile, enterprises will now be able to proactively profile the true experience of all their customers, whether they are connected to the Internet via Dial-up, DSL, Cable Modem or high-speed T1/T3 connection.

Web Content Diagnostics Option

Keynote’s new Web Content Diagnostics option offers some of the most advanced diagnostic capabilities available and was designed to accelerate problem identification and speed time to resolution, while eliminating costly false-positives. With just a few mouse clicks, Operations teams can discover exactly what is causing an anomaly, and then move quickly to resolve any issues. Keynote’s new Web Content Diagnostics option includes the following features:

• Advanced Screen Snapshot -- Enables users to identify hard-to-detect logical errors on the page — such as missing buttons or other coding errors — by providing a screen snapshot of every page leading up to and including a content error, along with the HTTP response headers.
• Object Level Capture -- Helps Web Operations teams to pinpoint which objects (such as JPEG files or other objects) on a Web page are causing performance slowdowns, by reporting response times for each object on the page.
• Object Level Trending -- Saves time and resources by reporting the performance over time of individual objects on a Web page to indicate whether an object-level slowdown is a one-time event or a persistent problem that requires attention.

Transaction Perspective has always captured important diagnostic metrics such as DNS, First Byte, SSL, re-direction time etc. that enable Operations teams to quickly isolate and analyze performance problems on their Web sites. With Screen Snapshots, Object Level Capture and Object Level Trending the analytic power of Transaction Perspective is now greater than ever before. Taken together, Keynote’s Web Content Diagnostics option represents a powerful set of tools that allows Operations teams to quickly and accurately identify logical issues underlying performance problems and quickly address them in order to ensure transaction completion and a consistent user experience.

Transaction Perspective High Frequency

Keynote has also announced the upcoming availability of Transaction Perspective High Frequency, ideal for operational monitoring of complex/rich internet applications involving Java, Flash, Ajax, Web services, and other advanced technologies. Transaction Perspective High Frequency has been designed for Operations Managers who desire high frequency measurements, but with the high fidelity of Keynote’s IE browser-based True Experience™ technology in order to accurately monitor their rich Internet applications. Transaction Perspective High Frequency represents an entirely new tool for operations teams at an extremely attractive price point. By providing four times the measurements of Transaction Perspective for the same monthly price -- with only a slight loss of fidelity -- Transaction Perspective High Frequency allows for operational monitoring of Web 2.0 applications with the high level of accuracy and reliability for which Keynote Transaction Perspective has become known.

Other significant enhancements to Transaction Perspective include an improved MyKeynote user interface, as well as enhancements to the Keynote Service Center, including customization for audience type, configurable schedules and content and search archives for historical reports up to two years. In addition, Keynote has also significantly upgraded both the operating system and hardware for Transaction Perspective measurement computers, which now run on Intel® Pentium® 4 2.4 GHz single processors with Windows XP Professional reflecting the dominant market hardware and operating systems in use by consumers and business users today.

“With the announcement of Transaction Perspective 7.0, Keynote has significantly extended its value as a business-friendly approach to capturing and interpreting the multi-dimensional requirements of application QoE,” said Dennis Drogseth, a vice president at Enterprise Management Associates. “With diagnostic tools, like advanced screen snapshots and object level trending, a new operational monitoring tool, and the added value it’s now bringing with last-mile monitoring, Keynote now offers both operations teams and online business managers a rich and individualized set of measurement tools to measure and monitor Web sites and advanced Web applications.”

Pricing and Availability

Transaction Perspective 7.0 and Transaction Perspective Last Mile will be available starting November 9th, with prices starting at $1,295.00 USD per month for 5-page Web transactions, from 10 U.S. locations, measuring once every hour. Transaction Perspective High Frequency is available at the same price, but at four times the measurement frequency with only a slight loss of fidelity. Transaction Perspective High Frequency will be available in December 2006. The Web Content Diagnostics add-on is available at a 25% premium on the total price of monthly measurements. For more information about Transaction Perspective, or to speak to a Keynote sales representative call 1-800-KEYNOTE (1-800-539-6683), or email: [email protected].

About Keynote

Keynote Systems (Nasdaq “KEYN”) is the global leader in test & measurement solutions that improve mobile communications and online business performance. As an independent and trusted third-party, Keynote provides IT and marketing executives with an unbiased view into their Internet services from around the world. For over a decade, we have been providing measurement data and testing capabilities that allow companies to understand and improve their customer’s online and mobile experience. Keynote has four test and measurement businesses: Web performance, mobile quality, streaming & VoIP, and customer experience/UX. In addition, our industry analysis group called Keynote Competitive Research publishes proprietary studies measuring customer experience and service levels across a wide range of industries.

Known as The Mobile and Internet Performance Authority™, Keynote has a market-leading infrastructure of 2,400 measurement computers and mobile devices in over 240 locations around the world. Keynote also maintains one of the most representative panels of online users consisting of 160,000 consumers. Our on-demand, hassle-free infrastructure allows businesses to access services they need, when they need them to pinpoint and fix mobile quality and Internet problems before they impact customers.

We help over 2,600 corporate customers become “the best of the best” by helping them improve online business performance and mobile communications quality. Our customers represent top Internet and mobile companies including American Express, BP, Caterpillar, Dell, Disney, eBay, ESPN Mobile, E*TRADE, Expedia, FedEx, Microsoft, SonyEricsson, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and Vodafone.

Keynote Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo, California, and can be reached at www.keynote.com or by travel in the U.S. at (650) 403-2400.

Keynote, The Internet Performance Authority and Perspective are registered trademarks and The Mobile and Internet Performance Authority and True Experience are trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2006 Keynote Systems, Inc.