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Riverbed in the Visionaries Quadrant of the 2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers

Riverbed announced today that it has been positioned by Gartner in the ‘Visionaries’ quadrant of the 2012  “Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers” authored by Neil Rickard, Bjarne Munch, and Joe Skorupa, and published in October, 2012. In the report, Gartner positions vendors in one of four quadrants - Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries and Niche Players - based on the companies’ vision and ability to execute on that vision.You can download the complete report here. The Magic Quadrant itself is shown below:
 
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According to the report, “The application delivery controller has evolved into a key component of the data center architecture, and enterprises should evaluate ADCs based on how they integrate with this architecture and support more-advanced features, such as user and traffic control and monitoring.” 

The continued evolution of the datacenter architecture from a physical to a virtual and cloud environment requires enterprises to deploy ADCs that are more flexible, dynamic, and application-aware than ever before. Riverbed Stingray is designed to be deployed seamlessly across all IT architectures, including physical, virtual, cloud, software-defined, and hybrid data centers. The solution’s key differentiators are its flexible software and virtual form factors, the custom scripting capability that provides organizations with granular control over their applications, and advanced features such as web content optimization (WCO) and web application firewall security capabilities. 

While the industry recognition is much appreciated, Riverbed is not taking this for granted as our team of ~1600 individuals at Riverbed continues to work on improving existing products, develop new and exciting technology, and deliver top-notch technical support to our customer base of 19000+.

(Source: blog.riverbed.com)

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Riverbed to Acquire OpNet

Riverbed to Acquire OPNET Technologies, Inc.

Acquisition extends Riverbed’s Network Performance Management business into high-growth Application Performance Management market
BETHESDA, Md. & SAN FRANCISCO—October 29, 2012—Riverbed Technology (NASDAQ: RVBD), the performance company, and OPNET Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPNT), the leading provider of solutions for application and network performance management, today announced that Riverbed® has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire OPNET for $43 per share in cash and stock, representing an equity value of $1 billion and an enterprise value of $921 million. The acquisition will enable Riverbed to extend its network performance management (NPM) business into the multi-billion dollar application performance management (APM) market. The combination of Cascade® and OPNET will create a new force in the converged market for NPM and APM, with over $250 million in annualized revenue.

Networks and applications are required to work together to deliver the performance business users demand. The addition of OPNET’s broad-based family of APM products enhances Riverbed’s already strong position in the NPM market. The resulting combination is a product line with unparalleled visibility and insight into application and network performance. This acquisition enables Riverbed to provide customers with a unique integrated solution that not only monitors network and application performance, but also accelerates it.

OPNET has been recognized as a leader in the APM market: www.opnet.com/gartner-magic-quadrant-apm/.

“The addition of OPNET establishes Riverbed as the clear leader in the high-growth and converging application and network performance management markets,” said Jerry Kennelly, Chairman and CEO at Riverbed. “This acquisition also transforms Riverbed into a billion dollar revenue company.”

“Riverbed and OPNET have natural synergies,” said Marc Cohen, OPNET’s Chairman and CEO. “Riverbed’s leadership in accelerating business technology combined with OPNET’s industry-leading suite of APM products provides customers with a single solution for monitoring, troubleshooting and actually fixing the application and network performance problems challenging them today.”

OPNET will be combined with Riverbed’s Cascade business unit. The transaction is expected to be accretive to Riverbed’s 2013 earnings per share on a non-GAAP basis. Leveraging the Riverbed brand, channels and infrastructure, Riverbed expects meaningful revenue and operating synergies in 2014.

Exchange Offer Details

Under the terms of the agreement between Riverbed and OPNET, Riverbed will acquire all of the outstanding shares of OPNET common stock pursuant to an exchange offer, followed by a second step merger. In the exchange offer and the merger, OPNET stockholders will receive for each OPNET share they own: (i) $36.55 in cash; and (ii) 0.2774 of a share of Riverbed common stock. The cash portion of the offer consideration will be financed through Riverbed’s existing cash on hand and new debt. The exchange offer is subject to customary closing conditions, including the tender into the exchange offer by OPNET stockholders of shares representing at least a majority of the outstanding shares of OPNET common stock on a fully diluted basis, receipt of financing and the expiration or termination of the applicable waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, as amended, and is expected to close before December 31, 2012.

Goldman, Sachs & Co. is serving as financial advisor to Riverbed; Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati are serving as legal advisors to Riverbed. Lazard is serving as financial advisor to OPNET and Cooley LLP is serving as legal counsel to OPNET. Riverbed has received financing commitments from Morgan Stanley and Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Conference Call

Riverbed will host a conference call and webcast today, October 29, 2012, at 7:00 a.m. Pacific Time (10:00 a.m. Eastern Time) to discuss its proposed acquisition of OPNET. To participate via telephone, in the U.S. the toll free dial-in number is (877) 474-7568; outside the U.S. dial +1 (706) 634-6541. Please call 10 minutes prior to the scheduled conference time. A live webcast and supporting slides can be accessed at www.riverbed.com/investors. The webcast replay of the conference call will be archived on the Riverbed Investor Relations website.

About OPNET

Founded in 1986, OPNET Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:OPNT) is the leading provider of solutions for application and network performance management. For more information about OPNET and its products, please visit www.opnet.com.

About Riverbed

Riverbed delivers performance for the globally connected enterprise. With Riverbed, enterprises can successfully and intelligently implement strategic initiatives such as virtualization, consolidation, cloud computing, and disaster recovery without fear of compromising performance. By giving enterprises the platform they need to understand, optimize and consolidate their IT, Riverbed helps enterprises to build a fast, fluid and dynamic IT architecture that aligns with the business needs of the organization. Additional information about Riverbed (NASDAQ: RVBD) is available at www.riverbed.com.

Forward Looking Statements

This document contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: (i) statements about the benefits of the exchange offer and the merger; (ii) future financial and operating results following the exchange offer and the merger; (iii) the combined company’s plans, objectives, expectations and intentions with respect to future operations, products and services; (iv) the competitive position and opportunities of the combined company; (v) the impact of the exchange offer and the merger on the market for the combined company’s products; and (vi) the timing of the completion of the exchange offer and the merger. In addition, words such as “anticipate,” “believes,” “budget,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “potential,” “predicts,” “project,” “should,” “will” and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of Riverbed’s management and are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of Riverbed. The risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: (a) risks related to the integration of OPNET into Riverbed and the anticipated future benefits resulting from the acquisition of OPNET; (b) Riverbed’s or the combined company’s ability to react to trends and challenges in our business and the markets in which we operate; (c) Riverbed’s or the combined company’s ability to anticipate market needs or develop new or enhanced products to meet those needs; (d) the adoption rate of Riverbed’s or the combined company’s products; (e) Riverbed’s or the combined company’s ability to establish and maintain successful relationships with our distribution partners; (f) our ability to compete in our industry; (g) fluctuations in demand, sales cycles and prices for Riverbed’s or the combined company’s products and services; (h) shortages or price fluctuations in Riverbed’s or the combined company’s supply chain; (i) Riverbed’s or the combined company’s ability to protect intellectual property rights; (j) general political, economic and market conditions and events; (k) difficulties encountered in integrating Riverbed’s and OPNET’s businesses and technologies; (l) the expense and impact of legal proceedings; and (m) other risks and uncertainties described more fully in Riverbed’s and OPNET’s documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements in this document are based on information available as of the date hereof, and Riverbed assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Riverbed reserves the right to modify future business or product plans at any time.

Additional Information and Where to Find It

The exchange offer for the outstanding shares of OPNET referenced in this document has not yet commenced. This announcement is for informational purposes only and is neither an offer to purchase nor a solicitation of an offer to sell shares of OPNET, nor is it a substitute for the registration statement and exchange offer materials that Riverbed and its acquisition subsidiary will file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) upon commencement of the exchange offer. At the time the offer is commenced, Riverbed and its acquisition subsidiary will file exchange offer materials on Schedule TO and a registration statement on Form S-4 with the SEC, and OPNET will file a Solicitation/Recommendation Statement on Schedule 14D-9 with the SEC with respect to the exchange offer. The exchange offer materials (including a Prospectus/Offer to Exchange, a related Letter of Transmittal and certain other offer documents) and the Solicitation/Recommendation Statement will contain important information. Holders of shares of OPNET are urged to read these documents when they become available because they will contain important information that holders of OPNET securities should consider before making any decision regarding tendering their securities. The Prospectus/Offer to Exchange, the related Letter of Transmittal and certain other offer documents, as well as the Solicitation/Recommendation Statement, will be made available to all holders of shares of OPNET at no expense to them. The exchange offer materials and the Solicitation/Recommendation Statement will be made available for free at the SEC’s web site at www.sec.gov. Free copies of these documents will be made available by Riverbed by mail to Riverbed, 199 Fremont Street, San Francisco, CA 94105, Attention: Investor Relations.

In addition to the Prospectus/Offer to Exchange, the related Letter of Transmittal and certain other offer documents, as well as the Solicitation/Recommendation Statement, Riverbed and OPNET file annual, quarterly and special reports and other information with the SEC. You may read and copy any reports or other information filed by Riverbed or OPNET at the SEC public reference room at 100 F Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20549. Please call the Commission at 1-800-SEC-0330 for further information on the public reference room. Riverbed’s and OPNET’s filings with the SEC are also available to the public from commercial document-retrieval services and at the website maintained by the SEC at www.sec.gov.

Riverbed and any Riverbed product or service name or logo used herein are trademarks of Riverbed Technology, Inc. All other trademarks used herein belong to their respective owners.

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RIVERBED INTEGRATES CLOUD-READY STINGRAY TRAFFIC MANAGER SOFTWARE WITH VMWARE VFABRIC™ APPLICATION DIRECTOR™
Solution Integration Combines Acceleration and Automation Capabilities; Enables Customers to Provision and Scale High-Performing Applications Faster in the Cloud
SAN FRANCISCO—August 27, 2012—Riverbed Technology (NASDAQ: RVBD), the performance company, today announced the integration of Riverbed® Stingray™ Traffic Manager, its software and virtual application delivery controller (ADC), with VMware® vFabric™ Application Director™, a hybrid cloud application provisioning solution. This solution combines Stingray Traffic Manager software application acceleration capability with VMware vFabric Application Director automation to allow customers to create application blueprints that can be used to provision and scale multi-tier applications, faster and smarter in a hybrid cloud environment. These application blueprints can use application delivery features of Stingray Traffic Manager software for a higher level of application portability across cloud services and repeatable deployments of selected applications with standard deployment settings.

Application development and portability are evolving and can become more complex as companies continue to move to the cloud. The need for real-time updates of application functionality changes frequently in scale, and user demand for constant availability and reliability place new pressure on application architects. These challenges are time consuming and can be costly for an enterprise deploying and updating its applications in the cloud. Stingray Traffic Manager software provides enterprises with a solution to accelerate, automate, provision, and scale their clouds cost effectively.

“Though cloud computing provides enterprises with many benefits, the need to instantly meet user demands can prove challenging for application architects,” said Rohit Mehra, director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure at IDC. “Solutions for these challenges must match the nature of the cloud itself - they must be innovative and flexible. The merging of acceleration and automation capabilities is invaluable for organizations seeking to quickly and cost-efficiently deploy and provide high-performing applications.”

VMware vFabric™ Application Director, a cloud application provisioning solution for hybrid clouds, simplifies creating application deployment topologies that are truly portable across private, public, and hybrid cloud environments through the use of application deployment blueprints. With the integration of Stingray Traffic Manager software with vFabric Application Director, application architects within IT organizations can now easily-with a drag and drop interface-choose to accelerate and load balance their enterprise applications in the cloud. The solution is available on VMware Cloud Application Management Marketplacebeta. The marketplace allows VMware partners, customers, and end user communities to develop and publish application blueprints that are truly portable across clouds. This gives application and infrastructure teams the flexibility, freedom of choice and a collaborative environment for implementing a forward looking IT strategy for cloud application delivery into cloud.

“VMware vFabric™ Application Director™ is a cloud-ready solution that delivers deployment efficiency and agility, accelerates time to market, reduces costs, and leverages existing investments,” said Ramin Sayar, vice president and general manager, Virtualization and Cloud Management at VMware. “With cloud environments becoming more pervasive, customers must have flexible, easy-to-use solutions that can be quickly integrated into highly dynamic virtual and cloud infrastructures. The integration of Stingray Traffic Manager software with vFabric Application Director fits with our solution to accelerate, automate, and scale applications in the cloud.”

Riverbed will also leverage other product vendors in VMware’s Cloud Applications Management Marketplacebeta to expand the solution. The first collaboration is with Zend, a provider of software and services for developing, deploying and managing business-critical PHP applications in the cloud. This collaboration has yielded a blueprint for Magento E-Commerce store on a clustered high availability Zend server fronted by Riverbed. Customers who need high performing PHP applications in the cloud would be able to use new blueprints by Riverbed and Zend that can save them significant application development time and resources.

Designed for the cloud, the Riverbed ADC solution is a comprehensive layer seven software ADC that can be deployed seamlessly in private, public, and hybrid clouds. Stingray Traffic Manager software offers simple scripting, easy user interface-based configuration management, and robust application programming interface (APIs) that enable the solution to be managed as an application and provisioned like a service. This makes it better suited than a hardware load balancer to accelerate multi-tier applications in a virtual or cloud environment.

“As applications move to the cloud and become more dynamic, performance solutions must keep pace with how they are changing,” said Apurva Davé, vice president of products, Stingray Business Unit at Riverbed. “The Stingray Traffic Manager software was designed with the cloud in mind, and its ability to accelerate applications is unrivaled. Riverbed and VMware have a longstanding history that enables better-performing IT for enterprises. Integrating Stingray Traffic Manager software and vFabric Application Director™ is an important progression for application architects and enterprises operating in the cloud, as this collaboration will enable faster and easier deployments of highly-optimized applications.”

Riverbed will demonstrate the Stingray Traffic Manager software and VMware vFabric Application Director integration at VMworld® 2012, taking place August 26-30 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Calif. Conference goers can visit Riverbed at booth #723.

Additional Resources
Riverbed-VMware Partnership
Stingray Traffic Manager service on VMware Cloud Application Management Marketplacebeta
Reference Java application blueprint fronted by Stingray Traffic Manager
Facebook
LinkedIn
Riverbed Blog
Riverbed Community
Twitter (@Riverbed)
YouTube

Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to the expected demand for Riverbed’s products and services, statements regarding performance results of Riverbed solutions that may suggest likely or certain outcomes, and statements relating to Riverbed’s ability to meet the needs of distributed organizations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they do not fully materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements include our ability to react to trends and challenges in our business and the markets in which we operate; our ability to anticipate market needs or develop new or enhanced products to meet those needs; the adoption rate of our products; our ability to establish and maintain successful relationships with our distribution partners; our ability to compete in our industry; fluctuations in demand, sales cycles and prices for our products and services; shortages or price fluctuations in our supply chain; our ability to protect our intellectual property rights; general political, economic and market conditions and events; and other risks and uncertainties described more fully in our documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. More information about these and other risks that may impact Riverbed’s business are set forth in our Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on July 27, 2012. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to us as of the date hereof, and we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Any future product, feature or related specification that may be referenced in this release are for information purposes only and are not commitments to deliver any technology or enhancement. Riverbed reserves the right to modify future product plans at any time.

About Riverbed
Riverbed delivers performance for the globally connected enterprise. With Riverbed, enterprises can successfully and intelligently implement strategic initiatives such as virtualization, consolidation, cloud computing, and disaster recovery without fear of compromising performance. By giving enterprises the platform they need to understand, optimize and consolidate their IT, Riverbed helps enterprises to build a fast, fluid and dynamic IT architecture that aligns with the business needs of the organization. Additional information about Riverbed (NASDAQ: RVBD) is available at www.riverbed.com.

Riverbed and any Riverbed product or service name or logo used herein are trademarks of Riverbed Technology, Inc. All other trademarks used herein belong to their respective owners.

VMware, VMworld and VMware vFabric Application Director are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. The use of the word “partner” or “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.

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— Riverbed.com

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You spent millions on your critical apps. Are you getting the ROI you need?Learn how you can from VistaOne and Riverbed:http://bit.ly/NmYcL7

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Want to backup to a cloud (Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace)? VistaOne can show you how with Riverbed Whitewater. http://bit.ly/LLOqQD

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Riverbed released RiOS 6.5.5b yesterday. Basically bug fixes for 6.5.5 which introduced the 150 model. Upgrade or not? http://bit.ly/LQYE3G

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We still have a few spots open in VistaOne’s acclaimed Riverbed Cascade training June 6th-11th in the D.C. Area! http://bit.ly/L36kgo

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Riverbed Shark 9.5.2 is now out. 9.5 is great,providing multi-segment analysis, VoIP & Cisco SCCP reporting, timestamping tap support & more