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Starbucks Trying Faster Wireless Download Approach

Written by Evan Schuman
October 18th, 2007

Starbucks and Akamai announced an agreement Thursday for what they paint as a faster and more reliable way for customer to do in-store digital downloads.

The Akamai deal is directly related to an Apple/Starbucks deal announced month, where visitors to the coffee chain will be able to download music from the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store at Starbucks using a variety of Apple hardware, including the iPod, iPhone and a Mac running iTunes.

The Starbucks arrangement has Akamai running on servers within the Starbucks store, allowing for the music download to happen locally.

"Last mile access has been reduced to a few feet, dramatically improving end-user performance and eliminating the expense and time-to-market of having to increase connectivity in each store location," said a Starbucks statement.

The new arrangement also helps bring the content from iTunes to the various Starbucks locations, the companies said.

Posted in E-Commerce, IT Strategy/Industry, Mobile/Wireless/Contactless
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