Virtual solutions open door for growth in ADC market

CAMPBELL, USA: Market research firm Infonetics Research released market share and preliminary analysis from its 3rd quarter 2013 (3Q13) Data Center Network Equipment report.

"We believe that virtual solutions will continue to move the application delivery controller (ADC) market forward, and while the shift to virtual products might brake top line revenue growth in the short term due to lower ASPs versus their hardware-based counterparts, it's likely to be margin neutral," notes Cliff Grossner, Ph.D., Infonetics Research's directing analyst for data center and cloud.

Grossner continues: "Longer term, we expect virtual solutions to open the door for ADC penetration in small- to medium-sized business accounts, growing the size of the overall market and creating new opportunities for vendors."

3Q13 Data center market highlights

* In 3Q13, worldwide application delivery controller (ADC) revenue totaled $435 million - essentially flat (+0.5 per cent) from 2Q13, dragged by internet content providers turning to homegrown load-balancing solutions

* In the race for ADC revenue market share, A10 is challenging Radware for the #3 spot

* Though WAN optimization revenue increased 3 per cent sequentially in 3Q13, to $210 million, it remains on an overall downhill course, with revenue falling 9 per cent year-over-year this quarter

* Future WAN optimization revenue will increasingly come from the replacement of existing gear rather than adoption by new customers or sites

* As usual, Riverbed dominates the WAN optimization market, Cisco is firmly in second place, and Blue Coat rounds out the top three