Slough, UK - April 15, 2008 -- Expand Networks, a leader in application acceleration over the wide area network (WAN) and recently positioned in the Gartner’s Leaders Quadrant for WAN Optimization Controllers 2007, is addressing application performance issues over satellite links enabling global enterprises to reliably deliver all business applications.

With increasingly dispersed offices in remote locations, satellite networks have become common practice to assist organisations in business agility. However, the design limitations of high latency and packet loss over satellite networks severely affect application performance resulting in delayed file transfer, slow response times and reduced remote user productivity. By deploying the Expand Compass platform with integrated Space Communications Protocol Standards (SCPS), all applications are accelerated over satellite networks guaranteeing workforce productivity and end user satisfaction.

SCPS is a collection of standards-based TCP enhancements designed and developed by NASA to overcome the shortcomings of TCP in the stressed environment of satellite communications. Expand has truly integrated SCPS with the multiple technologies of the Expand Compass platform in a single platform, to mitigate against the negative impact of satellite and accelerate applications to remote users, guaranteeing improved performance and productivity.

“ When SCPS is combined with compression, byte-level caching, QoS and other forms of caching techniques integrated in the Compass, it ensures that Expand delivers as much ‘virtual’ capacity as possible while mitigating the effects of TCP latency, and gaining complete control with the QoS, and crucially, all in one device, ” said Adam Davison, VP Sales, EMEA, Expand Networks. “ Compass excels in satellite environments with the ability to accelerate all business applications ensuring they achieve maximum potential resulting in improved end user productivity and reduced network costs. ”

When deploying Compass, compression features increase network capacity on average by as much as 100-400% removing congestion, and acceleration rates of 300-500% address protocol limitations, reducing chattiness and lessening latency. In addition, QoS services prioritise business over non-business and other web traffic to eradicate congestion for mission critical applications.

Many organisations around the world have already experienced the tremendous improvement in application performance and capabilities over satellite links when deploying the Expand Compass platform such as Boeing Integrated Defense. According to Dennis Watts, project manager, “ Efficiency is an integral part of our evaluation and it is important to have strong compression functionality along with QoS. Expand’s Compass Platform possesses a robust architecture in addition to their experience in government satellite markets.”

In addition, Kenn Devine, Project Team Leader and Manager of Information Systems, Burns and Roe Services Corporation said “ On average, we experience about a four-fold average bandwidth acceleration across the 512Kbps satellite link, with peaks of 1,200%. Across the DSL sites, we experience an average of about 300% with peaks to 800%, depending on the site. There was also a 400% increase in network throughput, 100% for speed performance (back-up, file transfers) and a 50% bump to the positive in network capacity.”

Other satisfied Expand satellite customers include Mass Discounters, Kuehne & Nagel and Zenith Bank in South Africa; Marshall Communications in the US, All Seas and Maersk Shipping in EMEA.

Note About the Magic Quadrant

The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted December 2007 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.

Expand Networks is the pioneer and leader in the WAN Optimization market and is positioned by Gartner Inc. in the ‘Leaders’ quadrant in its Magic Quadrant for WAN Optimization Controllers, 2009[i]. Expand helps organizations simplify their IT infrastructure while delivering remote offices fast, reliable and secure access to networked applications.  This results in improved user productivity and cost-effective IT management.  Expand offers a multi-service integrated platform that ensures superior performance for any application over any network.  From its headquarters in Roseland, NJ and its global locations, Expand Networks serves more than 3,500 enterprise and public sector customers in over 100 countries including: American Express, Bacardi USA, BMW, Continental Airlines, Carr America, Colgate, Elizabeth Arden, Reed Exhibitions, Target and United States Department of Defense with over 40,000 units deployed and over 2,000 MS Terminal Services and Citrix customers.  Expand is the largest supplier of WAN Optimization products to US Government and Military agencies (greater than 10,000 units) and also has the most units deployed at a single corporate location, (4,500).

Expand Networks, Accelerator, Expand Compass, ExpandView are trademarks of Expand Networks. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.