Gartner Magic Quadrant: Blue Coat Provides a Strong Solution for Cloud-Based Applications, but its Product Evolution is Narrow

Gartner recently released the 2015 Magic Quadrant for WAN Optimization Controllers (WOC). In the report, Gartner says that Blue Coat Systems provides a strong solution for cloud-based applications via its local link load balancing and direct-to-the-Internet capabilities, combined with its cloud-based SWG service and asymmetric caching. It also supports one of the industry's widest ranges of application-specific acceleration solutions, as well as a strong video solution with many streaming protocols.

However, while Blue Coat offers strong WAN optimization functionality, its market vision and product evolution are narrow, and focus is directed more at integrating its security and WAN optimization than at evolving a broad WAN optimization solution. Furthermore, while it does not support any WAN path control, it does support single-ended asymmetric link load balancing capabilities for direct Internet access. Thus, enterprises still must ensure support for each relevant location.

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