2008 - Another strong year for WAN Optimization

With all the bad economic news this year, there is one technology area that has defied the odds and seems to have weathered much of the storm.  I qualify my statement not by the stock price performance of WAN optimization vendors like Riverbed, Bluecoat, and Cisco, but rather by the increase in the awareness and adoption of this technology to address severe challenges in IT with regards to cutting costs in branch office, data center, and mobile worker environments. 

While still relatively new and emerging, the WAN optimization market appeared to hit its stride in 2008.  A number of articles like Voxilla's 5 Great Communications Innovations of 2008 and the Tech Replublic's 10 most important business technology products of 2008 back my position.  This market presents great opportunities to make a real impact on how IT can do more with less.  From cutting your bandwidth costs to helping organizations reduce their server footprint, WAN optimization has a direct and immediate impact on an organization's ability to dramatically cut costs in IT.

I would like to hear your opinion.  How do you think the WAN optimization market has fared during this gloomy 2008 economic environment?