Competition for app acceleration dollars heats up

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: DENISE DUBIE ON NETWORK OPTIMIZATION
07/21/05
Today's focus: Competition for app acceleration dollars heats
up

Dear networking.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* Vendors jockey for position in app acceleration market
* Links related to Network Optimization
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus: Competition for app acceleration dollars heats
up

By Denise Dubie

It all started earlier this year when Speedera acquired Akamai,
Juniper Networks purchased Peribit Networks and Redline
Networks, and then Cisco stepped up and acquired FineGround.
Then in June, Citrix followed suit by putting money down for
NetScaler.

If you consider that Forrester Research this year estimated the
market for application acceleration technologies could reach
nearly $2 billion, the vendors' race to acquire and incorporate
application acceleration tools into their product suites makes
sense. In the past, the various vendors that made up the
application acceleration market provided technologies that each
addressed part of the problem. The once disparate application
acceleration market has started to consolidate, and a smaller
set of vendors provides more capabilities in fewer products.

Server load balancing, traffic management and caching
technologies all fall under the umbrella of application
acceleration. But with the acquisitions and obvious vendor
consolidation, industry analysts predict the market will further
consolidate and the technologies will overlap more.

Forrester Research predicts four submarkets will emerge from the
larger application acceleration market: data center
acceleration, which is an evolution of the server load balancing
market; last-mile acceleration, which features technology to
accelerate access for users at home and branch offices; IP
traffic management, which would entail optimizing application
delivery on the WAN; and application-specific acceleration,
which could include streaming media applications, file
distribution technologies, collaborative applications, and
packaged and custom apps.

An industry veteran may take the lead in yet another networking
area. "Enterprises will benefit from having one vendor
optimizing their end-to-end application flows," writes Thomas
Mendel in the July 13 Forrester Research report "Acquisitions
transform app acceleration market." "If Cisco can beef up its
WAN traffic compression capabilities, it has the best shot at
leading the market in the long term."

Incidentally, Cisco last year acquired Actona Technologies for
$82 million. Actona pumped up Cisco's product line with wide
area file services technology, which further enhances Cisco's
competitive advantage in the overall WAN optimization market. (I
had mentioned Actona in one of last week's newsletters, but
neglected to mention it had been acquired by Cisco.)

RELATED EDITORIAL LINKS

App acceleration tools evolve
Network World, 11/11/04
http://www.networkworld.com/nlnetop3552

Gaining speed, Citrix buys NetScaler
Network World, 06/06/05
http://www.networkworld.com/nlnetop2400
_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Denise Dubie

Senior Editor Denise Dubie covers network and systems management
for Network World. Reach her at <mailto:ddubie@nww.com>.
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by F5 Networks
How Fast Is Your Site?

Learn how well your site is performing with F5's real-time
Compression Calculator.  Simply enter any site address, click
Submit, and instantly receive the bandwidth savings and transfer
rate improvements you'd receive if you had F5's BIG-IP
compression capability.  It's fast, detailed, and best of all,
it's free.
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=107516
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ARCHIVE LINKS

Archive of the Network Optimization newsletter:
http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/accel/index.html
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storage encryption can help ease the threat of identity theft,
why one exec believes its all about the information and more.
Click here:
<http://www.networkworld.com/supp/2005/ndc4/>
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