Certeon last week released updates to its WAN optimization technology that were developed to accelerate Microsoft applications specifically. The company, just one of many in a hot and crowded market, could have the right idea, according to one industry analyst.

"Certeon is making the effort to partner with Microsoft and extend Microsoft's platforms" for optimizing application performance at remote offices, says Peter Christy, a principal with industry analyst firm Internet Research Group. With competition from the likes of Juniper, Riverbed and Silver Peak Systems, Certeon could differentiate itself by using knowledge of Microsoft applications to make acceleration easier over WANs.

"Over the last couple of years Microsoft has been converging and refining its collaboration technologies for knowledge workers and Certeon is supporting Microsoft's efforts in those areas," Christy adds.

Last week Certeon, formerly Infolibria, announced it would add blueprints for 2007 Microsoft Office, SharePoint and Exchange platforms to its suite of S-Series Application Acceleration Blueprints. Certeon technology uses blueprints of known, packaged applications such as Oracle or SAP to understand the end-user requests that will require specific application data objects to pass over the WAN.

"We can accelerate all traffic, but the blueprint technology turbo charges the applications we've developed blueprints for," says Gareth Taube, vice president of worldwide marketing at Certeon.

The blueprint technology works with Certeon S-Series appliances, which come in three models: the S-1000, S-2000, and S-3000, supporting small branch offices, regional offices and large data centers, respectively. The Certeon S-Series appliances sit in the line of the network between the gateway router and the switch that is managing the LAN. Certeon employs a symmetric product set that requires customers install appliances in the data center as well as on the other end of the WAN in remote or branch office locations.

The updated appliances and blueprints for 2007 Microsoft Office System and SharePoint Products and Technologies are scheduled to be available this quarter. The blueprint for Exchange Server is expected to be available in early 2007. Pricing ranges from $6,000 to $35,000.

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