The WAN Optimization marketplace will continue to include Cisco. That’s the official word from Cisco, in response to industry speculation that the networking giant was planning on exiting the business.
At the core of Cisco’s WAN Optimization efforts is the WAAS (Wide Area Application Services) set of technologies which include both software and hardware solutions.
“WAAS is still growing strong and it wouldn’t make any sense to stop investing in it,” Inbar Lasser-Raab, Senior Director Enterprise Networking Marketing at Cisco told EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet.
Cisco officially launched new WAAS 5.0 software earlier this year including application visibility technology called AppNav.
The WAN Optimization market is growing somewhat slowly overall, according to a recent market report from Infonetics Research. Infonetics reported that WAN Optimization revenues for the market in the second quarter of 2012 were flat year-over-year. By Infonetics’ measure, Riverbed leads the market by revenue with Cisco trailing in the number two spot.
While Cisco is not exiting the WAN Optimization market, the company has changed its operations model for the staff building the 
technology. WAAS engineers have now been integrated into the Enterprise Networking business group. Lasser-Raab noted that WAAS software has been integrated with Cisco’s ISR (Integrated Services Router) and CSR (Cloud Services Router) for months.
Read the full story at EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet:
Cisco Stands Behind WAN Optimization
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.