Expand Networks announces record year: acquisitions, international growth, Compass Platform architecture highlight 2006

Expand Networks (www.expand.com), a leading provider of application acceleration solutions over the WAN, and recently positioned in Gartner's Leaders Quadrant for WAN Optimisation Controllers 2006, today announced increased year-to-year growth in customers and revenue for its fiscal year 2006, which ended 31 December. Expand Networks is a global, privately held corporation.

"In 2006, we achieved many milestones for Expand Networks," said Elie Barr, CEO Expand Networks.

"I am very satisfied with the company's global progress in all phases during the last 12 months. We delivered on our commitment and vision to continue supplying industry-leading innovation to the market, resulting in increased customer acquisition, securing invaluable third-party validation of our technology, boosting our reseller programmes, acquiring DiskSites, a former OEM partner and increased global distribution channels.

"I am honoured that Expand was named a 'Leader' by Gartner, which spurred sales and recognition. Our customers have recognised the benefits and ROI of Expand's Compass Platform and continue to choose this robust multi-service solution over our competitions' single-point solutions. The Expand Compass continually stands up as a reliable platform, tested in the most stringent environments such as Fortune 100 and the US Department of Defence and has a proven track record that wins deals," added Barr.

Additional key highlights which contributed to Expand's progress covers several critical areas of its business including:

* Growth: Expand Networks ended 2006 with over 29 500 units deployed across 1 450 customers. This represents one of the largest install bases in the market. Expand still leads all vendors with the largest deployment in the industry with over 3 000 units in a financial services firm. In addition, there are more than 6 000 units across the US Armed Forces a testament to the scalability and robustness of the Compass Platform over competitive offerings.
* Expand's revenue is well distributed across the globe as follows: 49% Americas; 41% EMEA and 10% Asia-Pacific.
* 56% of global revenue came from new customers.
* Customers: Expand Networks continued to grow its customer base, especially in the global Fortune 1000 enterprise sector including verticals such as financial services, insurance, retail, manufacturing/transportation and government. The Expand Compass Platform is winning the large architecture reviews in the marketplace.
* Big wins this year included ABN Amro Bank, Amdocs, BMW, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, FedEx, GE, Groupe SMABTP, Honeywell, Invacare, Sberbank, TRT-Brazil and World Fuel Services.
* The company has been closing deals faster and is winning significant bake-offs against Riverbed, Juniper, Cisco, Blue Coat, Packeteer and others.
* Expand is recognised by many as having the best of breed Server Consolidation solution that truly eliminates the remote branch server.
* Partners: Expand established and completed deployments with new alliance partners including Double-Take Software, EMS Satcom, Lakeview, MRO, Network Appliance and Shunra.
* Channel: In June, Expand launched the Compass Channel Program which focused on the convergence of WAN optimisation and WAFS, giving resellers a way to tap into these rapidly growing markets and accelerate their businesses and profitability. For 2006, 90% of revenue went through its channels.
* Technology: This period saw an increase in Expand's investment - both in human and financial capital in R&D. As a result of its acquisition of DiskSites, a leader in the WAFS market, Expand was the first vendor to ship a fully integrated appliance with acceleration, QoS, WAFS and compression, thus extending its technology leadership to a market looking to reduce the complexity of its networked IT environment.
* Expansion: The company launched Expand China, opened new offices covering the Nordic and Iberia regions, and also entered into additional distribution agreements in the UK, France, Germany, Australia South Africa, Korea and Japan.
* Market validation: Because of Expand's technology leadership and proven ability to execute its vision, Gartner positioned Expand as a "Leader" in the Gartner WAN Optimisation Controllers 2006 report which also included top rivals Riverbed Technology (Nasdaq: RVBD) and Juniper Networks (Nasdaq: JNPR).
* The Expand Accelerator 6940 was recognised as a winner in Storage Products Guide's Global Excellence in the Server Consolidation category.
* The Taneja Group also recognised the company and stated in a report: "This platform is a model for where the wide-area application acceleration market is going and it matches up well against [our] selection criteria. In short, for IT teams that want to see thought leadership in this market, look no further than Expand."
* The signature Compass Platform also achieved "Avaya Compliant" Certification.

"We exited 2006 with a strong tail wind and are looking forward to increasing this momentum in 2007," said Barr. "The WAN optimisation market is flourishing and we foresee many companies allocating line items in their budget to implement WAN and WAFS technologies. In addition, our large customer wins are merely the tip of the iceberg as they roll-out the second and third phases of their deployments. Expand's objectives for 2007 include delivering on an even wider range of application acceleration solutions, growing our channel and working with top tier OEMS. We have also strengthened an already strong R&D programme which continually sets the bar for vision and delivers on innovation critical to the needs of the marketplace."