3 Non-Technical Reasons Why Riverbed Steelhead Trumps Cisco WAAS

I can give you a laundry list of reasons why Riverbed's Steelhead WAN optimization product family is technologically superior to Cisco WAAS. And I'm sure Cisco can also come up with a list of reasons why they claim to be better than Riverbed. Our marketing departments can duke it out till the end of time but, at the end of the day, how do you know what to believe? As the wary consumer it's natural to be somewhat skeptical of any company's marketing propoganda. That is why I am going to give you three non-technical reasons for why Riverbed Steelhead is a better choice than Cisco WAAS. 

1) Market share - According to Cisco's Corporate Overview Presentation, Cisco has 70% market share in Switching, 54% market share in Routing, and 56% market share in Wireless. The image below was taken directly from Cisco's website. You'll notice that there is no entry for their percent market share in the WAN optimization space. Considering Cisco has bragging rights for nine different markets one can only assume that their percent market share for WAN optimization isn't worth mentioning, much less bragging about. On the other hand, Riverbed, who doesn't sell routers or switches, and who is a fledgling company in comparison to Cisco (Riverbed opened it's doors in 2002 and Cisco in 1984) has 51.7% market share in WAN optimization globally, according to Gartner.  Now, you tell me, why would a company with over 50% market share in all the key networking markets, not have 50% market share for the technology that optimizes networks?

2)R&D Investment - According to their website, Cisco spent 13% of their FY10 revenue on R&D. I can't imagine much of this was invested into their WaaS devices considering the number of them Riverbed seems to be continually replacing. I think it's safe to assume that the majority of that 13% is invested into their products which bring in the most revenue, which are probably the technologies it has the greatest market share in. Based on these assumptions, 13% spread across the nine different markets it highlights above, how much of that R&D investment can possibly be invested into their WAAS appliances? I'd guess very little. Riverbed, however, focuses solely on developing technology to improve performance and the results you get are proof of that.

3) Our customers are our # 1 fans - Riverbed has one of the most loyal and vocal customer bases you will ever find. Riverbed customers will be the first to tell you how great our Steelhead product works; from the Riverbed Customer Network to the Riverbed Community Forums, it's easy to see why Riverbed has earned it's place as the market leader in WAN optimization.

"There are three major technologies that have changed the way we do business: email, the web, and WAN optimization from Riverbed."
—Bruce Bartolf, CTO, Gensler Architecture Worldwide

 

Comments

[Gavin Williams]

This is the best non technical reasons I have heard, and damn it is so true!!

[Sabrina Poppe]

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Thanks Gavin! Glad you agree
J
 

Thanks,
Sabrina

 
 
Sabrina Poppe
Business Development
O:415.344.6481
M: 650.867.5793