Riverbed To Acquire Application Delivery Specialist Zeus

Together, Zeus' and Aptimize's technology will form what Riverbed is describing as its "asymmetric optimization strategy." Zeus, in particular, will make Riverbed more of a direct competitor to F5 Networks and other ADC specialists.

According to Riverbed, it will pay about $110 million to acquire Zeus, plus an additional $30 million based on booking targets goals over the year following the acquisition's closing. Zeus, based in Cambridge, U.K. and with an office in Santa Clara, Calif., was a past member of CRN's Emerging Vendors list thanks to its ADC software and expanding partner program.

Zeus' virtual ADCs support a broad range of hypervisors, and are also available as-a-service through a number of cloud providers, such as Amazon and Rackspace. Zeus recently acquired a partner, Art of Defence, which provides distributed web application firewalls and with whom Zeus said it would strengthen its cloud security footprint.

According to Riverbed, Zeus will become a new business unit of Riverbed, to be led by Zeus CEO Jim Darragh.

"According to industry analysts, the virtual ADC market is expected to grow about four times faster than the traditional ADC market over the next four years," said Riverbed President and CEO Jerry Kennelly in a statement. "Zeus is well positioned within this market as customers look for ADC solutions for public and private clouds that truly integrate into their application stack."

Aptimize, based in Wellington, New Zealand, will become Riverbed's new Web Content Optimization product group, and will be led by Aptimize CEO Ed Robinson. Aptimize's technology enables customers to more effectively deliver internal Web applications, such as SharePoint, and external applications more easily, thanks to how it reorders, merges and resizes content based on who is viewing the content and where he or she is viewing it from. According to Riverbed, the technology is a frequent add-on to WAN optimization and ADC products.

Riverbed did not disclose terms of its Aptimize acquisition. Kennelly, in an interview with CRN last fall, said Riverbed would continue to look for companies to acquire that are profitable and fit Riverbed's profile.