Microsoft, Packeteer Intro iShaper

REDMOND, Wash. -- Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Packeteer (NASDAQ: PKTR) today announced a joint product strategy to deliver the industry’s first comprehensive, Microsoft® Windows®-based branch office IT solution: the Packeteer iShaper.™ Building on an existing partnership, the two companies are collaborating on the engineering and marketing of this new “Branch Office Box” to make computing faster, more secure and more cost-effectively managed for employees in branch office locations. The initial release of iShaper will be available later this quarter, with subsequent versions available in the fourth quarter of this year. [Editors note: see today’s announcement detailing Packeteer’s iShaper product.]

The two companies are combining Packeteer’s Wide Area Network (WAN) optimization and its application visibility and prioritization technologies with Microsoft technologies, including Windows Server®, Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server and System Management Server (SMS). As a result, customers will be able to intelligently accelerate the delivery and use of applications over the WAN and take advantage of the full range and ease-of-use of Windows services for file, print, Active Directory®, networking, and more.

Combining WAN optimization, prioritization and visualization technologies in one box with the rich set of native Windows services is a significant milestone in Microsoft’s strategy to deliver branch IT solutions that unify security and management technologies.

"The remote branch office is becoming one of the top network IT initiatives of the decade," said Lucinda Borovick, program director, datacenter networks, IDC. "IT organizations want to deliver leading edge server and storage resources to the distributed enterprise while keeping operational and management costs in line. Unified branch office appliances that include application visibility, security and accelerated delivery of applications will play a major role in meeting the needs of the remote branch.”

In a separate release:CUPERTINO, Calif. -- Packeteer® (NASDAQ: PKTR - News), the global leader in WAN Application Delivery, today announced the introduction of its iShaper(TM) appliance that delivers an entirely new class of unified branch office capabilities, combining unprecedented application visibility, intelligent acceleration, secure application QoS and native compatibility with Microsoft application services in a single, easy to deploy device. (Editors note: see today's announcement detailing Packeteer/Microsoft partnership.)

As the industry's first unified branch office appliance, iShaper delivers superior performance for all key business applications to the branch office. iShaper is the only device to combine high performance delivery for all application types plus network performance troubleshooting, security services and native Microsoft application services. iShaper replaces acceleration-only and other point products with a unified device that optimizes data, voice and video traffic, and addresses customer demand to centralize data and storage and consolidate branch office server infrastructure. With iShaper, enterprises will realize significant cost savings by converging high-speed network access to centralized data - via wide area file services (WAFS), TCP and HTTP traffic, high performance ERP, CRM and financial transactions - with high fidelity voice and video.

"Packeteer's 'virtual data center' for the branch offices begins the next important phase in the data center consolidation effort," said Peter Christy, principal analyst at Internet Research Group. "Server consolidation has achieved remarkable improvements in distributed IT cost-effectiveness and data security but at the cost of branch office application and data access performance. Packeteer's iShaper appliance is the first to integrate application visibility and QOS with wide-area acceleration functionality, including important Microsoft technical initiatives, into one manageable system, raising the bar in branch office application and server consolidation."

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT)

Packeteer Inc.0