Sez my old WAN to your old WAN


22 Aug 2006

Network software player Citrix has acquired a software firm that specialises in optimising wide area networks (WANs) for US$50m in cash. The acquisition of Orbital Data strengthens Citrix’s hand in the crucial and burgeoning WAN market.

With an estimated 55pc of all employees worldwide accessing their applications from branch offices, WAN optimisation solutions are rapidly becoming a critical infrastructure requirement for companies worldwide.

“With this acquisition, Citrix enters the fast-growing WAN optimisation market accelerating application delivery for branch offices worldwide thereby extending our best access experience value,” said BV Jagadeesh, group vice-president and general manager, Application Networking Group for Citrix.

“Citrix has a proven track record making successful acquisitions and bringing products to market as part of its overall application delivery strategy. A similar opportunity exists with Orbital Data and we are enthusiastic about bringing this solution to our customers and channel partners around the world,” Jagadeesh added.

The Orbital Data solution, which will be re-branded as Citrix WANScaler, addresses this important market by improving application response time up to 50 times for branch office employees while reducing the need for expensive bandwidth upgrades.

The cash consideration to Orbital Data shareholders was approximately US$50m. The company also assumed approximately 300,000 unvested stock-based instruments, each of which upon vesting will be exercisable for the right to receive one share of the company’s common stock.

By John Kennedy