It's all about the client. You may hear IT managers talking more and more about how they need to perfect application performance down to desktop machines. And now network and WAN managers are singing the same tune. Impressed with results from acceleration and optimization appliances deployed at remote and branch offices, IT buyers now want to see software - small enough to download onto a client machine from anywhere - from these vendors and they want it now.

The technology, which could fall into research firm Gartner's category of soft WAN optimization controllers, would make it possible for any client connecting to the data center via a browser to receive the caching, compression, acceleration and optimization benefits of those working in a remote or branch office with an optimization appliance nearby.

This week at Interop New York, Stampede Technologies is set to make available its Acceleration On-Demand products that would enable customers with specific access rights to get optimization technologies delivered via their browsers. This software works with either Stampede's Application Acceleration Series or Web 2.0 Performance Series appliances, which are installed in the data center.

Companies such as ICT Compress with its AcceleNet 3.0 Enterprise and now Stampede, are making these tools available to customers that must support end users with varying connectivity as well as customers that often need speedy access to files or images.

For instance, Cary Dahl, IT manager at Ivey, a Seattle-based imaging company reports that his deployment of Silver Peak Systems' technology is delivering great results, but he'd like to see client-side software from the vendor going forward.

"One of things I'd like to see from the big optimization vendors is a software-based client that I could offer to my customers," Dahl says. (See the previous newsletter for more on Dahl's network.)

IT buyers should be on the look out for these tools from their vendors as industry watchers say all application acceleration and WAN optimization vendors should be laying out plans to package their acceleration and optimization technologies as small software applications, easily downloaded by a client browser to connect back to data center appliances and software.

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.