Competitors sound off on pending NetScout/Network General deal

Network/Systems Management Network World's Network/Systems Management Newsletter, 09/26/07 Competitors sound off on pending NetScout/Network General deal By Denise Dubie NetScout last week announced its plans to acquire Network General in a deal worth about $205 million. Set to close in November, the acquisition would bring together two sometime competitors and strengthen NetScout's packet-analysis and application performance management product suite. Network General customers, who have endured a bit of a rocky decade with the vendor, now face another management team. But officials at NetScout, the smaller of the two companies, say they will support all Network General products. Industry watchers think the move will help both product lines as NetScout approaches network and application management performance from the top down, and Network General with its history in Sniffer technology tackles the same issues from the bottom layers up. The combination should provide a comprehensive set of capabilities to customers, industry watchers say. Find out why WAN Optimization is Right for You Discover how you can realize a three to four month return on investment with WAN optimization tools in this informative Webcast. Learn how all WAN optimization products are not the same and how to find the right box for your organization. To find out more click here. "Network General's acquisition of Fidelia last February gives them the application performance story that NetScout was not covering," says Tracy Corbo, senior analyst for IDC. "These companies have found themselves more often in cooperative selling environments because each was approaching the problem differently." Yet competitors say otherwise. Douglas Smith, president and co-founder of Network Instruments, sounded off on the pending deal in the company's blog and also coupled the words with some graphics -- showing how Network General has a bit of a checkered past. Smith writes: "We think coupling high-level aggregated reporting with in-depth packet capture and TiVo-like network analysis is such a good idea that in December 2006 we forged a partnership with NetQoS. Our partnership was the first among network analysis vendors; NetScout’s purchase of Network General is simply the latest company to jump onto the bandwagon. What we offer today, they are promising for the end of fiscal 2009. Both of these companies are among the leaders in their markets, but it seems they’ve lost their way. NG has seen shrinking sales and a patchwork of acquired product offerings that have never truly been integrated – and that was when these technologies were under one roof." Network Instruments aforementioned partner NetQoS also chimed in. Steve Harriman, vice president of marketing at the performance management vendor, writes in an e-mail: "The lackluster financial performance of both Network General and NetScout demonstrates that their technologies have struggled to keep pace with the performance-first demands of modern enterprise networks. This lack of technology vision has cost both companies dearly and resulted in flat or negative license revenue growth over the last financial year. With NetScout and Network General playing catch-up with their respective technology platforms, their prospects for growth are unlikely to change any time soon, particularly with a complex and time-consuming merger of organizational cultures and technologies now looming. From a competitive viewpoint, we see this acquisition as a direct, if not belated, response to our partnership with Network Instruments." With the companies' joint argument about how the NetScout/Network General deal echoes an earlier partnership, it could be argued that the pending acquisition is a smart one that could equip customers with much-needed capabilities. Now the question becomes, "Is it better to get the two sets of capabilities from one integrated vendor or have to deal with two companies that forged a partnership?" Let me know.   What do you think? Post a comment on this newsletter

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Contact the author: Senior Editor Denise Dubie covers the technologies, products and services that address network, systems, application and IT service management for Network World. E-mail Denise. ARCHIVE Archive of the Network/Systems Management Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007