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Blue Coat Systems

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Blue Coat Systems
Company typePublic (NASDAQ BCSI)
IndustryTechnology
Founded1996
HeadquartersSunnyvale, California
Key people
CEO: Brian NeSmith
ProductsProxy Servers, Web Cache, WAN optimization, SSL VPN
RevenueIncrease USD 305 Million (FY 2008)
Increase USD 25 Million (FY 2008)
Increase USD 32 Million (FY 2008)
Number of employees
1400+ (July 2008)
Websitewww.bluecoat.com

Blue Coat Systems (Nasdaq: BCSI), founded in 1996, is a publicly-held company based in Sunnyvale, California. Blue Coat secures Web communications and accelerates business applications across the distributed enterprise. Blue Coat’s family of appliances and client-based solutions – deployed in branch offices, Internet gateways, end points, and data centers – provide intelligent points of policy-based control enabling IT organizations to optimize security and accelerate performance for all users and applications. Blue Coat has installed more than 8,000 customers worldwide and is ranked #1 by IDC [1] in the Secure Content and Application Delivery market.

Blue Coat appliances and software technology help IT organizations secure Web communications and accelerate delivery of business applications for all users across the distributed enterprise - including Internet gateways, branch offices, data centers, and even individual end points. Blue Coat appliances function as intelligent points of control wherever users and applications are connected to the network, and provide these important capabilities.

Products

The Blue Coat ProxySG appliance family runs the purpose-built SGOS operating system as a proxy server for 15 protocols, including HTTP, FTP, SSL (forward and reverse), CIFS, MAPI, Telnet, SOCKS, P2P, Microsoft Media Services, RTSP, QuickTime, AOL IM, Yahoo IM, MSN Messenger, and TCP-Tunnel. ProxySG appliances include a policy engine for control and security. Blue Coat ProxySG appliances' MACH5 (Multi-Protocol Accelerated Caching Hierarchy) technology accelerates WAN traffic through bandwidth management, protocol optimization (e.g., CIFS proxy), object caching, byte caching (of file components), and data compression [2].

The Blue Coat ProxyAV appliance family integrates with ProxySG appliances via an extended ICAP+ connection intended for enterprise gateway virus scanning with low average latency. Blue Coat ProxyAV stops spyware as well, and supports scanning engines from Kaspersky Lab, McAfee, Sophos, Ahn Lab, and Panda Software.

The Blue Coat ProxyRA appliance family provides encrypted, on-demand, agentless access to Web and non-Web applications [3].

Blue Coat WebFilter is a content filtering service that categorizes domain names, directories and IP addresses for policy enforcement and security. Blue Coat’s ‘Dynamic Real-Time Rating (DRTR)’, uses artificial intelligence to attempt to categorize new Web pages the first time a user requests access[4].

WinProxy is a desktop proxy server which allows users to share an internet connection, similar to Microsoft's Internet Connection Sharing. This product is End-of-Sale at this point [5].

K9 Web Protection is desktop-based content control software which uses Blue Coat WebFilter to provide homes with Internet filtering. This is free software offered by Blue Coat to anyone looking to protect web access from their home or business networks [6].

Software history

Blue Coat appliances use a purpose-built microkernel operating system called ‘SGOS’, which traces its lineage to the Thoth [7] research OS created at the University of Waterloo, Canada in 1976. Thoth is generally considered the first of the real-time message passing operating systems, whose descendants include QNX and ‘V-Kernel’. Thoth evolved into the Port OS and language between 1982 and 1990, which produced Hayes LANstep in the early 1990’s. In 1996 CacheFlow (later renamed Blue Coat Systems) created the CacheOS to drive proxy server Web acceleration appliances. This microkernel architecture was chosen for its process efficiency. In 2002, a policy engine was added and the OS name changed to SGOS (for “secure gateway”). SGOS’ hardened architecture are in no way based on Microsoft Windows, Unix or Linux code. SGOS later passed certifications from NIAP Evaluation Assurance Level 2, FIPS 140-2, and ICSA.

Financial history

Blue Coat was founded in 1996 as CacheFlow, with Web acceleration from its Web cache as the primary offering. CacheFlow went public in November 1999 at $26 per share and closed at $126 the first day. CacheFlow was among the top-ten price jumps in IPO history. In 2001 the telecom recession caused CacheFlow to downsize and redesign its products. In the summer of 2002 the company changed its name to ‘Blue Coat Systems, Inc.’, and added policy control and security capability to Blue Coat appliances. In late 2006 Blue Coat went back to its roots in accelerating applications, and added a focus on WAN Optimization, a fast growing market segment, and by mid 2007 gained enough market share to be ranked 1st in market share of WAN Application Delivery by IDC[8].

Acquisitions

References

  1. ^ IDC
  2. ^ Blue Coat SGOS ProxyEdition data sheet
  3. ^ Blue Coat ProxyRA Data Sheet
  4. ^ Blue Coat WebFilter Data Sheet
  5. ^ Blue Coat Winproxy
  6. ^ K9 Spread the Word
  7. ^ Thoth OS
  8. ^ IDC Market Share Numbers 1H07 WAN Application Delivery Market
  9. ^ Press release - Blue Coat Completes Acquisition of Packeteer June 9, 2008
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