Blue Coat Leads Worldwide WAN Application Delivery Market In 2009

Blue Coat Systems, Inc. the technology leader in Application Delivery Networking, today announced that IDC, a leading market research and advisory firm, has named Blue Coat as the worldwide market share leader in WAN Application Delivery for 20091. Blue Coat increased its market share to 28.7 percent in 2009, from 24.5 percent in 2008, on a 6.6 percent increase in revenue year over year. "With the rise of video and Web-based enterprise applications, it is clear that the market requires a solution that offers more than simple acceleration of email and files across the WAN."

The report notes that, "Blue Coat's application delivery strategy combining acceleration, visibility and control is proving successful in enterprise and service provider accounts... Blue Coat has successfully leveraged the Packeteer acquisition by expanding channel partners as well as by beginning to encourage its channel partners to sell an integrated application delivery solution to customers that includes visibility, security and acceleration."

While the WAN application delivery market was largely appliance-based in 2009, virtual appliances accounted for $20 million, or 2.1 percent, of the overall market, driven by customer interest in flexibly and quickly deploying application acceleration. Last month, Blue Coat introduced the ProxySG Virtual Appliance, a software-based version of its industry-leading WAN optimization technology that can run as a virtualized instance on industry standard servers.

According to IDC, the WAN application delivery market will grow to $1.5 billion in 2014, up from $970.3 million in 2009, in response to new demands on the network as enterprises attempt to meet the requirements for video, voice and enterprise applications. As the market evolves, IDC expects to see WAN application delivery solutions provide not just bandwidth cost savings but also visibility and control to support new enterprise initiatives and traffic makeup.

"With the rise of video and Web-based enterprise applications, it is clear that the market requires a solution that offers more than simple acceleration of email and files across the WAN," said Michael Hakkert, vice president of corporate marketing at Blue Coat Systems. "The Blue Coat ProxySG appliances lead the market because they provide organizations the ability to optimize applications across the WAN, intelligently accelerate Web-based applications and cache video content for easy access."