SAN FRANCISCO -- Riverbed Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: RVBD), the performance leader in wide-area data services (WDS), announced today the results of its semi-annual customer survey conducted in March 2007; over 500 customers responded, representing 435 organizations. The results show that Riverbed's customers are highly satisfied with Riverbed's products and technical support. The results also reveal purchase motivations, with acceleration of applications selected by respondents as their primary motivation for purchasing Riverbed's Steelhead WDS appliances. Of the respondents who evaluated alternatives, more than 170, representing 130 organizations, chose Riverbed's Steelhead appliances over Cisco's WAAS offerings, and 155, representing 148 organizations, selected Riverbed's Steelhead appliances over Juniper's WX or WXC appliances.
Riverbed® conducts its customer survey twice annually. The survey looks at customer satisfaction with Riverbed's products, technical support and professional services, customer purchase motivations, applications accelerated by Riverbed's Steelhead appliances, other vendors considered in the purchase process and why customers chose Riverbed.
"Ease of integration and application performance are important buying criteria for organizations of all sizes who are considering WDS products, said Zeus Kerravala, senior vice president of Enterprise Research at the Yankee Group. "Riverbed's high customer satisfaction rate shows that the company delivers on its promise of speed, scale and simplicity.
Customer satisfaction: 87% of the respondents gave Riverbed an overall company rating of eight or higher, on a scale of 1-10, while a full 41% of respondents gave Riverbed a perfect score of 10 out of 10. Product performance, hardware and software quality and management capabilities were all highly rated, with performance at 8.88. Riverbed's technical support also received exceptional scores, with expertise of support engineers coming in at 8.75 out of 10.
Purchase motivations: Riverbed surveyed the customer base to track their primary and secondary purchase motivations. Nearly 80% of respondents purchased Riverbed's Steelhead appliances to accelerate applications. The ability to reduce bandwidth costs, consolidate IT, and facilitate disaster recovery processes were also strong buying considerations. Over 70% of respondents selected IT consolidation as either a primary or secondary motivation for purchasing, while over 60% named disaster recovery as a primary or secondary motivation.
