F5 Placed in Leaders Quadrant by Premier Research Firm and Tops Worldwide Application Delivery Controllers Market Share

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader in Application Delivery Networking, today announced the results of recent performance analyses from Gartner, Inc. F5 is positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of Gartner’s 2008 Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers¹. F5 also emerged as the worldwide CY 1Q08 market share leader for Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs) based on revenue in Gartner’s Market Share: Application Acceleration Equipment, Worldwide, 1Q08².

“Vendors focused on solving enterprises’ most-pressing application problems have become the top players.”

In CY 1Q08, F5 was first in the ADC market with a 38.1 percent market share overall. F5’s performance was especially strong in the advanced platform (AP) segment — a higher class of ADC devices including those that combine advanced application delivery capabilities and intelligence to achieve true application fluency. F5 claimed 61.1 percent of the AP ADC market in the quarter.

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers evaluates key vendors in the ADC market space based on Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute. According to the report, “Vendors focused on solving enterprises’ most-pressing application problems have become the top players.” Moreover, “A leader has exhibited the ability to shape the market by introducing additional capabilities in its product offerings, and by raising awareness of the importance of these features. Key capabilities for a leader revolve around the AP ADC capabilities that focus on enterprise application capabilities. We expect a leader to have strong or growing market share, especially in the AP ADCs, and to have solutions that resonate with an increasing number of enterprises. Expertise in complex data center application deployment also is a necessity to be a leader in the Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers.”

“Enterprises are increasingly relying on advanced Application Delivery Networking solutions to ensure IT agility in today’s rapidly changing business climate,” said Dan Matte, SVP of Marketing and Business Development at F5. “By offering adaptable security, availability, and optimization capabilities on a scalable ADC platform — combined with a unique collaborative approach embodied by F5’s DevCentral^SM community and the company’s close relationships with application partners — F5 continues to empower organizations to run their businesses their way. We believe our performance in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant and market share reports is a clear indication that F5’s approach to application delivery is resonating within the market and analyst community.”

To view the full Magic Quadrant report and other analyst coverage, go to: www.f5.com/news-press-events/analyst-coverage/.

¹Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers, July 25, 2008, Mark Fabbi, Joe Skorupa.

²Market Share: Application Acceleration Equipment, Worldwide, 1Q08, July 2008, Joe Skorupa, Nhat Pham.

The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2008 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks is the global leader in Application Delivery Networking. F5 provides solutions that make applications secure, fast, and available for everyone. By adding intelligence and manageability into the network to offload applications and optimize the data storage layer, F5 extends the power of intelligent networking to all levels of application delivery. F5’s extensible architecture intelligently integrates application optimization, protects the application and the network, and delivers application reliability. Over 16,000 organizations and service providers worldwide trust F5 to keep their applications running. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington with offices worldwide. For more information, go to www.f5.com.

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