DETROIT, Sept. 7, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gomez, the web performance division of Compuware Corporation (Nasdaq:CPWR), today published the findings of a survey that shows a significant portion of U.S. consumers will quickly abandon websites that perform slowly.

With nearly a third of consumers stating they would start abandoning slow sites between one and five seconds, the survey findings offer an end-user perspective of the potential impact of Net Neutrality regulations and the importance of speed for all web businesses.

The independent survey, "When Seconds Count," was conducted for Gomez by Equation Research and queried 1,004 web and mobile users. Survey findings include:

Speed makes a difference when it comes to accessing a website:

• Nearly one-third (32 percent) of consumers will start abandoning slow sites between one and five seconds.
• 84 percent are only willing to try a slow performing website a few times before giving up.
• 39 percent say speed is more important than functionality for most websites, while only one in five rank greater site functionality as more important.

Speed also makes a difference when it comes to accessing a mobile site:

• A third of all web users are also using a mobile device to access the Internet.
• More than half of mobile users expect websites to load as quickly, almost as quickly or faster on their mobile phone, compared to the computer they use at home.

Slow load times are common and users feel frustrated with poor performance:

• Two thirds (67 percent) of users encounter a slow performing website a few times a week or more.
• More than a third (37 percent) said they would not return to a slow site, and 27 percent would likely jump to a competitor's site.  
• For mobile web users, slow website load times and poor formatting are the top two issues encountered on the mobile web.

Web users have visited sites and not been unable to accomplish their tasks:

• More than 80 percent of users say they have been unable to accomplish their tasks – such as completing a purchase or a financial transaction – on a specific website at least once.
• Nearly half (47 percent) say they have frequently abandoned sites where they couldn't finish their tasks in the past three months.

"When web users encounter web or mobile site performance problems, their patience and loyalty run thin," said Matt Poepsel, vice president of performance strategies at Gomez. "However, many companies fail to realize that seconds really do count because their customers refer to best-in-class web performers like Facebook, Google and Yahoo! as a measuring stick or standard for determining how fast all sites should be." 

Gomez retained Equation Research to conduct this survey. Interviews of 1,004 mobile web and mobile users were conducted between June 25 and June 29, 2010. To download and read the full survey findings, please go to http://bit.ly/aIQfsw

About Compuware Gomez

Gomez, the Web performance division of Compuware, provides the industry's leading solution for optimizing the performance, availability, and quality of Web and mobile applications. The on-demand Gomez platform integrates Web load testing, Web performance management, Web cross-browser testing, and Web performance business analysis, enabling organizations to test from the "outside-in" – across all users, browsers, devices, geographies, and data centers – using a global network of over 150,000 locations. Gomez is an integral part of Compuware's end-to-end Application Performance Management offering, the industry's only solution for optimizing application performance across the Enterprise and the Internet. Over 3,000 customers worldwide, ranging from small companies to large enterprises – including 12 of the top 20 most visited US websites – use Gomez to increase revenue, build brand loyalty and decrease costs.

Follow us on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/Gomez_Inc and http://twitter.com/compuware.

Compuware Corporation

Founded in 1973, Compuware provides software, experts and best practices to ensure applications work well and deliver business value. Compuware solutions optimize application performance across the Enterprise and the Internet for leading organizations around the world, including 46 of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies and 12 of the top 20 most visited U.S. web sites. Learn more at: http://www.compuware.com.

The Compuware logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=5950