The economy isn’t making things easy on technology vendors, but there are signs of hope among the handful of WAN optimization and application acceleration players that just reported their quarterly results.

Citrix Systems grew is income 22%, despite nearly flat revenue. Riverbed Technology grew its revenue by 12% compared to a year ago, and Radware narrowed its losses by 76%. Akamai Technologies, meanwhile, grew both revenue and profit by 5%. Here are some of the details:

• Citrix revenue flat, net income up 22%

Citrix last week reported financial results for its second quarter, ended June 30. Citrix’s revenue hit $393 million, a slight gain compared to $392 million posted in the second quarter of 2008. Net income for the second quarter came in at $43 million, or 23 cents per share, compared to $35 million, or 18 cents per share, a year ago.

Digging a bit deeper, product license revenue decreased 15%, while revenue from license updates grew 9%. On the services side, online services revenue grew 18% and technical services revenue (consulting, education and technical support) grew 3%. Revenue increased in the America’s region by 3%, decreased in the EMEA region by 12%, and decreased in the Pacific region by 4%. Deferred revenue totaled $538 million, compared to $476 million a year ago, Citrix reports.

Looking ahead, Citrix expects net revenue to be flat compared to the third quarter of last year. Likewise, Citrix expects net revenue for the full year to be flat as compared to 2008’s $1.6 billion annual revenue.

On the product front, some Q2 highlights for Citrix include the unveiling of NetScaler VPX, a software-based virtual appliance version of its NetScaler MPX hardware; upgrades to Citrix Essentials for XenServer and Hyper-V that add virtualization management capabilities; the addition of three new appliance models, the NetScaler MPX 9500, MPX 7500 and MPX 5500; and the debut of Citrix Dazzle, a self-service storefront for enterprise applications.

• Riverbed narrows losses, but misses revenue expectations

Riverbed grew revenue in its second quarter, ended June 30, but failed to swing a profit, the company reported last week. Total revenue came in at $91 million, an increase of 12% from $81.6 million reported in the second quarter of year 2008. The net loss for the quarter was $290,000, compared to a net loss of $869,000 a year ago.

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.