WAN optimization for a better cloud

BALI, INDONESIA: Following the Dotcom boom and its burst in late 1990s to 2000, technology investing has never entirely rid itself of the taint. Of many companies that survived the Dotcom bubble burst, Blue Coat assumes a significant place.

Mike Borman, president and CEO, BlueCoat Systems talks to CIOL about the transition of BlueCoat from CacheFlow, a caching pioneer that launched in 1996, the growth of business, investments and the road ahead... Read on:

What are the major changes that the company brought in when it became Blue Coat from CacheFlow?

Mike:The shift from CacheFlow, Inc. to Blue Coat Systems in the early 2000 represented a major expansion of Blue Coat's capabilities.

We began with a focus on making Internet fast, and deliver content quickly and effectively to users. We added critical security technologies and policy management to provide effective web security. Despite security and control, our products will not slow down the flow of content and applications. On the contrary, we can over-compensate for our processes and also speed things up, while reducing bandwidth consumption.

Later on, we added a new level of WAN optimization capability to address the challenge of delivering centralized content and applications to users in branch offices across wide area network.

When I joined Blue Coat, I could see that the company can lead just with its technology and so we let the products speak for themselves.

My initial efforts were around enhancing our go-to-market capabilities — from engaging partners to educating the market.

How is the change paying back?

Mike: We started as a small company and now we have a full-fledged security and networking services. The response from partners, customers, employees and investors have been quite positive.

I think everyone agrees that we are heading in the right direction. I am focused on the long haul. Blue Coat has an attractive future. We garner almost $500 million revenues from the security market.

What are your current offerings?

Mike: At a basic level, Blue Coat provides comprehensive solutions for web security and WAN optimization. Our products serve as a critical line of defense from the mounting malicious threats that come across the web. Our WAN optimization solutions accelerate and optimize files, e-mail, enterprise applications, on-demand videos and other web contents and applications in branch and distant remote offices and make them feel as if they are on corporate LAN.

We also provide solutions to service providers for web security and help them in reducing runaway demands for bandwidth due to web video and rich media.

When cloud is picking up as a major trend, the market of WAN optimization is showing a decreasing graph. What is your say?

Mike: WAN optimization is actually still in its early stages. Companies are still grappling with the problem of speeding applications and information across the WAN to their offices and employees.

Cloud is a hot trend, and no doubt an important one. We have been in the cloud business since the very beginning, when the web was known as the 'World Wide Wait'.

We developed our cloud-based WebPulse service even before anyone used the term, 'cloud'. We've recently introduced a comprehensive cloud service for web security. Actually, cloud and WAN optimization services are just in the beginning stages; however, we foresee a positive growth for them.

Moreover, over the time, as cloud evolves, we expect to see WAN optimization products develop additional set of features that allow them to support applications written for the cloud, as well as legacy applications that are migrated to the cloud.

What are a CIO's requirements today?

Mike: A CIO is responsible to ensure that business applications and information flow is quick and secure across the entire enterprise, regardless of how far flung an employee or office is.

In addition, CIOs need to think strategically and work along with CEOs to deliver a competitive advantage through technology.

Fast and secure are operative words, because they represent true value to the way business processes work and enable a company to do business in the most effective way possible.

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How are you planning to position yourself in the near future that can align CIOs?

Mike: To a large extent, the marketing is coming straight to us. Making networks faster and secure have become the top priority for any CIO.

Part of our challenge is to educate executives to understand what they can do with networks. The challenge is no longer about connectivity, but revolves around visibility and understanding; acceleration and optimization; security, flexibility and control. Blue Coat is exactly in the right place to solve these challenges.

India has showcased a tremendous growth services in the near future, so have you planned for any new strategy for the Indian market?

Mike: The Indian market has a great potential, not only in services, but also in overall business scenario. We purchased a Bangalore-based company S7 recently. Our strategy is to continue to grow our footprint in India — both from the development and sales standpoint. Given the kind of growth that we see in India, it is important to have solutions that grow along with us.

What is the USP of Blue Coat? Is it the cost advantage, services rendered, or newer applications?

Mike: The unique selling proposition for our WAN optimization products is that we take a comprehensive approach to accelerate content and applications across the distributed enterprise. Rather than just speeding up remote file access and email, Blue Coat solutions can optimize and scale video, accelerate web content and applications and speed up new enterprise applications.

In terms of security, Blue Coat is unique because of its ability to quickly identify and understand the latest source of malicious threats, the granularity and flexibility in which we can provide protection and control according to an organization's risk profile and business needs, and the ability to do it all without compromising on performance or creating a bottleneck.

Who are your SIs in India and what is the scale of business you do with them?

Mike: We work with many of the leading firms in India, including Wipro, Dimension Data and IBM. We also work with many of the top value-added resellers.

Do you have any plan to increase the count of SIs in India?

Mike: First and foremost, we want to make our existing partners successful and ensure that they can serve customers in the best possible way. As India is a large and growing market, we are always interested in partners, who can benefit from our solutions and help in extending our reach to customers.

(The author was hosted by BlueCoat in Bali, Indonesia).