SAN JOSE, Calif., September 7, 2000 - The Content Alliance, the industry group recently created to accelerate the market evolution of content networking services, today announced that 28 service and technology providers have joined as charter members.

The Content Alliance has been established to develop open standards and protocols to advance content networking and deliver key technologies such as content peering, which enables the content services networks of multiple service providers to work in cooperation. The new charter members of the Content Alliance include: ARC, America Online, Inc., Digex, Documentum, EMC, Entera, HelloNetwork.com, NetSat Express, OBCTV.com, Primedia Workplace Learning, SolidSpeed Networks, StorageNetworks, Streampipe.com, Sun Microsystems, Telefsnica Data, US Data Authority, Vividon, and Walt Disney Internet Group. Other charter members of the group include a wide range of service providers, content owners and technology vendors such as Cable & Wireless, Cisco Systems, Digital Island, Genuity, Global Center, Mirror Image Internet, NaviSite, Network Appliance, PSINet, and ServInt .

"The Content Alliance initiative has rapidly gained acceptance by a wide range of companies across the content networking value chain. This exemplifies the rapid growth in momentum of the content networking industry, and the desire of service providers to quickly resolve the technological and business issues that could otherwise slow down the development and delivery of advanced content services to customers," said Alex Benik, Analyst at the Yankee Group.

The Content Alliance also announced the first meeting of the Content Peering Working Group, which will take place on October 3, 2000, in Boston. The group will develop proposals to be submitted in time for the 49th meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), December 10-15 in San Diego. A key initiative of the Content Alliance, the Content Peering Working Group is designed to develop standards for content peering between separately administered content delivery networks. Content Peering allows CDNs to share resources for greater scale and reach than would be possible without such sharing. The Content Alliance has also announced that the first group of working documents will be available for review as of September 25, 2000. These documents will be posted at www.content-peering.org.

"The Content Alliance has rapidly become the primary vehicle to drive industry-wide open standards for content networking services, including content delivery networks," said Krish Ramakrishnan, vice president and general manager at Cisco Systems. "The intensity of interest in the Content Alliance highlights the market desire to implement content networking services, the variety of services enabled by this technology, and the value of having them interoperate."

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. News and information are available at the Cisco Press Room.

Cisco, Cisco IOS, Cisco Systems, the Cisco Systems logo are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.