Blue Coat buys Packeteer for $268M

More consolidation means maturing technology and increased meaningful competition. Is this enough for these guys to join Cisco, Riverbed, and Juniper? The big 3 in WAN Optimization have thorough solutions using hardware at both ends of the WAN. I’ve always seen Blue Coat and Packeteer as the leaders in a single-end caching, scanning, and prioritizing solution. While this does get them unique technologies, I don’t see it helping them branch out into a more complete solution. Even with Packeteer’s SkyX very-late-to-market solution. I guess if you liked their solutions before, you will even more now. And you’d only need to buy a handful of boxes.  I guess that’s why they are now the largest at 35% of that market!