Blue Coat to make 130 job cuts

Security vendor swings the axe after closing Packeteer purchase

Security vendor Blue Coat is to trim its workforce by 130 employees after completing its acquisition of WAN optimisation vendor Packeteer.

The web security and WAN optimisation vendor announced last night it would complete its ‘plan of termination’ by the end of July.

The plan includes workforce reductions, the acceleration of certain employee benefits, and outplacement assistance, and will result in the loss of 130 employees of Blue Coat, Packeteer and certain affiliates worldwide. This represents rougly 10 per cent of the two firms' combined workforce.

Blue Coat announced it had completed its acquisition of Packeteer earlier this week. The purchase will hand it an additional 10,000 customers, 50 additional sales teams and over 1,400 channel partners.

“Acquiring Packeteer provides us important short and long term benefits that advance our market leadership,” said Brian NeSmith, chief executive of Blue Coat.

“We should achieve near term enhancement of our sales and marketing efforts, through Packeteer's experienced sales force and reseller channel, and through selling the popular PacketShaper product, which complements our existing product line.”