Ironman Triathlon Becomes Largest Single-Day Sporting Event Over Internet

Anonymous writes "Dell Servers Enabled More than 1.5 Million To Log Onto Ironmanlive.com During Championship Weekend

Round Rock, Texas, October 31, 2003- From 2003 Ironman Champion Peter Reid's triumphant win to Peggy McDowell-Cramer's finish just minutes before the cut-off time, computer technology tracked each triathlete's progress every step of the way.

More than 1,600 athletes from nearly 50 countries competed in the 25th Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. And more than 1.5 million people logged onto Ironmanlive.com's DellTM servers during the Oct. 18 race weekend, making the event the largest single-day sporting event to be streamed over the Internet.

"Ironmanlive.com is breaking new ground for delivering television-quality coverage over the Internet," said Sean Gallagher, director of development, Discovery Channel. "The production value of Ironman's online coverage rivals the best broadcast media outlets. Ironmanlive.com is the future of endurance sports broadcasting."

Event organizers were outfitted with Dell handheld computers, workstations and servers to feed the information through Ironmanlive.com, the only outlet that broadcasted the event. Dell's technology helped the Ironmanlive.com's technical team load the Web site with split times, streaming video and still photos of the athletes on their journey from the shores of Kailua Bay to the breathtaking finish on Ali'i Drive.

More than 6.7 terabytes of data were streamed on the Web site as athletes completed the 2.4-mile ocean swim, 112-mile bike and 26.2-mile run during race day.

Technology deployed during the Ironman event included: Dell Precision M60 mobile workstations, enabling the Ironman video crew to edit video in real-time over Ironmanlive.com; Dell Axim wireless-enabled handhelds, providing spectators access to athlete split times from Dell volunteers at a help booth, and allowing emergency medical teams to access athlete information; and Dell PowerEdge servers, which streamed data on the Ironmanlive.com Web site via Rackspace.com

About Ironman Triathlon

For more than 20 years, the Ironman name has come to symbolize performance, quality, excellence and durability. These are the same traits that have been used to describe many of the finest products on the market today. Licensing partners such as Timex, Cannondale and FosterGrant have proven that the Ironman name delivers a strong incentive for consumers to purchase Ironman-branded products.

About Dell

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) is a premier provider of products and services required for customers worldwide to build their information-technology and Internet infrastructures. Company revenue for the past four quarters totaled $38.2 billion. Dell, through its direct business model, designs, manufactures and customizes products and services to customer requirements, and offers an extensive selection of software and peripherals. Information on Dell and its products can be obtained at www.dell.com. "