Significant Performance Gap Between the Highest and the Lowest Ranking

Significant Performance Gap Between the Highest and the Lowest Ranking Health Care Services Web Sites, Says Keynote

    Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

    SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 30, 2005--Keynote Systems (Nasdaq:KEYN)

--	Seven Leading Health Sites Kick-Off New Keynote Health Care Services Web Transaction Performance Index
--	Aetna, Kaiser, Oxford Top First Week's Index with 100% Reliability; Cigna, Oxford, Aetna Lead in Speed; Room for Improvement at the Bottom
--	Use of IT technology for Health Plan Enrollment Jumps from 40 to 69 Percent in Four Years, According to Health2 Resources
--	New Index Adds to Keynote's Growing Portfolio of Industry-Specific Web Transaction Performance Indices

    Keynote Systems (Nasdaq:KEYN), The Internet Performance Authority(R), announced today the "Keynote Health Care Services Web Transaction Performance Index," and published inaugural results of the new index. The index adds to Keynote's portfolio of industry leading Web transaction performance indices. It is the world's first e-business transaction index for the health care industry to systematically measure the speed and reliability of leading health care Web sites for performing common multi-step tasks. The purpose of the index is to provide an excellent competitive benchmark for leading health care provider Web sites.
    The Keynote Health Care Services Web Transaction Performance Index measures the speed and reliability of a typical consumer task such as going to a selected health care provider site and conducting a search for a doctor. The seven sites currently on the new index are Aetna.com, Cigna.com, Kaiser.com, Oxford.com, Principal Financial.com, Wellcare.com and Wellpoint.com.
    With the launch of the new Health Care Services Web Transaction Index, Keynote expands the reach of its Web performance indices into this critical services market. Keynote currently provides 10 industry-specific market-leading Web transaction performance indices. No other vendor offers the breadth and depth of distinct Web transaction indices designed specifically to meet the needs of specific industries in important and growing online categories.
    Companies that provide health care services have discovered the efficiencies that online, self service access for their customers can bring to their operations and the benefits that easy access can provide to patients dealing with important medical issues. The initial results from the Index, however, showed a tight race in both speed and reliability rates for the top performers in each category, but significant room for improvement for those sites at the bottom.
    The reliability rates for completing the task to find a physician found Aetna, Kaiser and Oxford all tied at 100 percent with Cigna and Principal Financial coming in very close behind. The lowest reliability rate was 98.66 percent.
    Cigna was the fastest Web site coming in at 4.02 seconds to complete the search, with Oxford and Aetna coming in close behind. The slowest site took 13.83 seconds.
    These results indicate that some health care providers are taking their Web sites very seriously and have scaled their infrastructure to support customers as more employers are implementing online self-service benefit programs. The remaining sites, especially the slower sites and those with lower reliability rates could benefit greatly if they frequently benchmarked their performance against other sites, reviewed their infrastructure and implemented best practices in Web site service level management that would increase the transaction reliability of their sites.
    "Aetna is the first national full-service health insurer to offer a consumer-directed health plan to help its members make better informed decisions about their health care. We place great importance on the speed and reliability of our Web site because, when members come to it, they are in need of vital information. Our position on the Keynote Health Care Services Web Transaction Performance Index validates the effort we have put into assuring that quality of service," said Lap Vu, director of operations, enterprise systems management, Aetna.
    Keynote has historically seen an improvement in overall performance results, over time, whenever it has launched a new vertical-based Web transaction performance index. For example, since the inception of the Keynote Broker Trading Index, the top brokerage sites have competed fiercely and have reduced their trade completion times by as much as 40 percent.
    Though most plans cannot gauge the exact financial return from their Web sites, they consider having an online presence to be a valuable commodity, according to a recent Capgemini report. "More payers view their sites as an effective way to market new products, like consumer-directed plans, not just (a way to lower) administrative costs," said Peter Kongstveldt, MD, Capgemini's vice president.
    "Health care issues and managing the cost of employee heath care costs continue to be an important issue both for employers and their workers," said Carol Carpenter, director of product management at Keynote. "As health care providers and employers move more common services to the online channel to lower costs, the performance of the providers' Web sites becomes more critical to allow patients fast reliable access to their information that is vital for managing their health risks. It is critical, therefore, that health care services providers have a deep understanding for the operational performance of their site so they can continually improve it. Our new index is designed to serve this need."
    Here are inaugural results for the Keynote Health Care Services Web Transaction Performance Index:

Week of March 21, 8:00 a.m. to midnight eastern time:

TRANSACTION SPEED TRANSACTION RELIABILITY

Rank Site Speed Rank Site Reliability (seconds) (percent)

1 Cigna 4.02 1 Aetna 100.00 2 Oxford 5.52 2 Kaiser 100.00 3 Aetna 5.53 3 Oxford 100.00 4 Wellpoint 9.44 4 Cigna 99.82 KEYNOTE INDEX 9.74 5 Principal 99.82 Financial 5 Kaiser 13.36 KEYNOTE INDEX 99.71 6 Wellcare 13.39 6 Wellpoint 99.64 7 Principal 13.83 7 Wellcare 98.66 Financial

    A report issued last month by Health2 Resources revealed that since 2001, the number of employers using information technology for health plan enrollment has risen from 40 percent to 69 percent. "Employers are looking for Internet-based health care functions in five key areas," says Katherine Herring Capps, president of Health2 Resources. "Enrollment and benefits changes, disease and care management, decision-support tools, employee education to influence behavior, and health and wellness information, and information about health plans."

    About The Keynote Health Care Services Web Transaction Performance Index

    The goal of the Health Care Services Index is to help this important industry measure and manage the performance of its Web sites, gain tools to efficiently help lower the cost of managed health care and provide a high quality of experience for health care consumers who need to access services online.
    The measurements in the Keynote Health Care Services Web Transaction Performance Index are taken using Keynote's industry leading Transaction Perspective(R) service. Measurements are taken every hour, seven days a week, from the 10 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. (Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.) on high-speed Internet links attached to key points on the largest U.S. Internet Service Provider (ISP) backbones. Reporting period is from 8:00 a.m. to midnight (eastern time) every day. Each of the measurement begins by launching the browser, selecting the starting URL for the specific Web site, and then conducting the following:

--	Finding the search function (and logging in if needed)
--	Typing in search selection criteria
--	Selecting the first item returned in the results
--	Logging out of the site (if needed)

    By completing the steps described above, Keynote completes representative transactions for each of the categories and reports the speed and reliability rates of the Web sites.
    Keynote subscribers receive 24/7 measurements and aggregated measurement components, such as DNS lookup time, TCP connect round-trip time, transaction response time, etc., for all sites on the index. Subscribers can also investigate performance based on city, backbone, or agent using the advanced MyKeynote data portal.
    The Keynote Health Care Services Web Transaction Performance Index will be published weekly on Keynote's Web site at: http://www.keynote.com/solutions/performance_indices/health_care_ services/health_care_services.html (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.).
    In addition to transaction performance measurement services, Keynote also provides detailed customer experience measurement services and reports for the health care services industry. The Keynote Customer Experience (CE) Rankings are syndicated, competitive benchmarking studies of customer behavior across leading Web sites in specific vertical industries. The studies provide critical business insight into online customer experiences, industry trends and competitive web strategies. Keynote conducts large-scale competitive customer experience benchmarking studies using proprietary software and a panelist pool of 160,000 actual consumers to gather the quantitative, qualitative and behavioral data that inform the reports. For more information on Keynote's Customer Experience Management services go to http://www.keynote.com/solutions/customer_experience_management.html.

    About Keynote's Web Transaction Performance Indices

    Keynote pioneered the use of vertical indices and benchmarks for e-business performance over five years ago. The data used to produce the index for a given week are taken from actual online transactions. Complete index data that includes the aggregated and limited time-frame results and every data point taken 24/7 along with page, network component, content and error detail, is available for purchase from Keynote on a subscription basis.
    Detailed information regarding the methodology behind all of Keynote's Web performance indices can be found at: http://www.keynote.com/downloads/whitepapers/webtxn-methodology 052704.pdf. (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)
    General information about Keynote's performance indices can be found at http://www.keynote.com/solutions/solutions_pm_performance_indices _tpl.html (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.).

    About Keynote

    Founded in 1995, Keynote Systems (Nasdaq "KEYN"), The Internet Performance Authority(R), is the worldwide leader in e-business performance management services. Over 2,100 corporate IT and marketing departments and 16,000 individual subscribers rely on Keynote's growing range of measurement and monitoring, service level and customer experience management services to improve e-business performance by reducing costs, improving customer satisfaction and increasing profitability.
    Keynote is viewed as The Internet Performance Authority due to the company's global infrastructure of over 1,600 measurement computers in more than 50 cities worldwide that capture and store on a daily basis over 60 million Internet performance measurements, frequent media citations quoting Keynote's Web performance data and analysis, the company's market-leading Web performance indices for vertical markets and leading customer research that provides critical business insight into online customer experiences, industry trends and competitive Web strategies.
    Keynote Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo, California and can be reached at www.keynote.com or by phone in the U.S. at 650-403-2400.

    Keynote, The Internet Performance Authority and Perspective are registered trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. (C) 2005 Keynote Systems, Inc.

--30--JR/sf*

CONTACT: Keynote Systems Dan Berkowitz, 650-403-3305 dberkowitz@keynote.com

KEYWORD: CALIFORNIA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: MEDICAL ADVERTISING/MARKETING SOFTWARE INTERNET E-COMMERCE PRODUCT SOURCE: Keynote Systems

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