Text Answer Service, kgb 542542, Engaged Engine Yard Platform-as-a-Service for Scalability, Reliability, and Support
SAN FRANCISCO – February 12, 2010 – Engine Yard, the leader in Ruby on Rails automation and management technologies, today announced that they partnered with kgb, the global information company behind America's most successful text answer service, kgb 542542, to scale their proprietary Texperts application to handle incoming text questions generated by kgb's third quarter Super Bowl ad. The Engine Yard Cloud helped enable the kgb service to respond to a surge in traffic created by kgb's "Sumo" commercial.
kgb 542542, http://answers.kgb.com, is the premier mobile text service that combines human-powered search with one of the most extensive databases in the business. The kgb 542542 service answers any question 24 hours a day, everyday by routing standard SMS phone messages through kgb's inhouse-developed Ruby on Rails-based application to human agents who respond with answers via SMS.
"Because there's no instant replay in business, we needed to take every step possible to ensure the performance and scalability of our application. We chose Engine Yard because of the Company's proven track record with large, business-critical Rails applications and their enterprise-grade support and infrastructure," said Rich Robinson, vice president of technology at kgb. "In addition to the Company's deployment and management support, the professional services team at Engine Yard began collaborating with our development team to scope and architect how best to scale the infrastructure supporting our application two months prior to the Super Bowl to ensure our campaign would succeed."
Engine Yard offers both private and public Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) cloud offerings that remove the drag of managing technology infrastructure and reduce application deployment and management expenses. This allows developers that use Engine Yard for their Rails-based applications to focus on their true passion – building great applications. With full time contributors to Rails, JRuby and Rubinius – Engine Yard offers developers and business unmatched expertise for managing and deploying next-generation web applications. kgb relies on Engine Yard Cloud to scale its application quickly and keep up with the explosive growth of mobile text inquiries during the Super Bowl campaign and ongoing.
"The software development team at kgb was under tremendous pressure to deliver a very complex application," said Tom Mornini, CTO of Engine Yard. "Because helping Rails applications like kgb 542542 succeed is in our DNA at Engine Yard, we were confident that together we could meet this challenge."
For more information about Engine Yard product and service offerings, visit www.engineyard.com or call (866) 518-YARD.
About Engine Yard
Engine Yard provides automation technologies and services for Ruby on Rails, including Engine Yard Cloud, an application services platform for web developers and web teams. It provides easy-to-use, automated Rails application deployment and management, with a design philosophy that allows easy migration of existing applications. Engine Yard employs top industry experts and sponsors or contributes to many Open Source projects and efforts such as Ruby on Rails, JRuby and Rubinius Headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., Engine Yard is backed by Benchmark Capital, New Enterprise Associates, and Amazon.com. Visit www.engineyard.com
Media Contact
Horn Group for Engine Yard Sabrina Cook scook@horngroup.com 415.905.4013
About kgb
kgb is a privately held, New York-based company and the world's largest independent provider of directory assistance and enhanced information services. During its fifteen year history, kgb has built some of the most successful and recognizable retail brands in the telecommunications and enhanced information services sector. kgb's European retail brands include The Number 118 118 in the United Kingdom and Le Numero 118 218 in France, both of which have the largest market share in their respective markets. kgb is also the largest and fastest-growing independent wholesale directory assistance service provider in the U.S.
kgb has pioneered the provision of a broad range of wholesale and retail information services beyond traditional directory assistance services, including call completion, movie listings, train schedules, price comparisons and "Ask Us Anything" service across multiple platforms, including mobile and landline phones, SMS and the Internet. In 2009 kgb launched its flagship text answer service, 542542 (kgbkgb) following the success of kgb's similar "Ask Us Anything" premium text answer service in the United Kingdom. Last year kgb served more than a hundred million consumers globally and answered nearly a billion questions.
