F5 Makes A Cool Billion in the Cloud

As the very cool infographic timeline details, application delivery controller company F5 Networks has exceeded $1 billion in revenue for its 2011 fiscal year. The company said it earned $314.6 million during Q4, which was a hike of eight percent over the $290.7 million* in the previous quarter, and 24 percent over the $254.3 reported during Q4 of fiscal year 2010. Overall for fiscal year 2011, revenue jumped to $1.15 billion, an increase of 31 percent from $882 million in fiscal year 2010.

You'd think that F5 would want to crow about this impressive milestone, but CEO John McAdam played it close to the chest, stating in bare-bones PR speak that the Q4 results "reflect solid year-over-year gains across all regions and vertical market segments." In addition, he notes, product sales grew stronger during Q4, "driving product revenue up 10 percent sequentially and 20 percent year-over-year."

McAdam does point out the contributions by F5's scale-on-demand chassis products, the Viprion 2400 (designed for mid to large enterprises) and the 4400 (targeted at large service providers), as well as the impact caused by the availability of the company's TMOS v.11 software offering for its Big-IP ADCs. The Big-IP line has been instrumental in F5's upward spiral.

Source: F5 (Click image to view larger version.)

F5 made its billion in a highly competitive market featuring competitors such as Cisco, Brocade, and Citrix (which focuses on using them with its own virtualization products). Other competitors include Radware, Zeus Technology, A10 Networks, Array Networks, Barracuda Networks and Crescendo Networks.

[*Corrected 11/1/11.--Editors]

Posted by Bruce Hoard on 10/27/2011 at 12:48 PM