Blue Coat shines as content security market shrinks

Vendor's security business is flourishing under new private owner, Infonetics figures suggest

Blue Coat appears to be back on song after growing content security sales by 15 per cent sequentially in Q3, against a flat market.

The vendor has not divulged too much about its financial performance since it was taken private a year ago following a string of bad results and strategic moves that were questioned by partners, but recently told ChannelWeb it had returned to growth.

That appears to be borne out by figures from market watcher Infonetics Research, which monitors the global content security market.

Infonetics said Blue Coat was the only player to enjoy significant growth in Q3 against a market that has shrunk for three consecutive quarters. Quarter-on-quarter sales growth of 15 per cent was enough to thrust it from third to second in overall market share.

Overall content security gateway appliance and software revenues fell 0.4 per cent sequentially to $719m (£445m), with software making up 37 per cent of the total, Infonetics said.

Talking to ChannelWeb, Pat Dunne, senior channel director EMEA at Blue Coat, said the decision by Blue Coat's new management to plough more sales and marketing focus into its traditional security business had paid dividends.

"The things we have done to drive the company forward are having an impact on the revenue," he said. "We have more focus on security again. We took focus off from a marketing perspective.

"A lot of what we are doing is selling to existing high-end customers. Their requirements are growing and their need for Blue Coat technologies is growing."

Infonetics has also released numbers on the Q3 network security market, which it said grew seven per cent year on year. The top three vendors – Cisco, Check Point and Juniper – saw revenues rise 1.5 per cent, 3.2 per cent and 11.1 per cent, respectively, on a sequential basis.