Blue Coat Systems – “Someday, Blue Coat will become what it wants to be, if it figures out what it wants to be.”

Pros

Blue Coat has a reasonably good and advanced product line, making it attractive to certain types of Information Technology buyers and decision-makers. Blue Coat's Security product line is unmatched for its purpose. WAN Optimization and Visibility product lines are competent and worthy competitors. The Systems Engineers are talented.

Cons

Engineering execution could be better, and this is a reflection of engineering management, not the core engineering talent. Self-congratulation pertaining to the India Engineering Outsourcing project is Pollyannaism at its worst (for laid-off employees) and scariest (for shareholders). The company is plagued by poor communication and poorer information dissemination resulting from dual, dueling intranets.

Advice to Senior Management

If you want to succeed in WAN Optimization then focus on it and do what's needed in the sales force and the channel to make it happen -- it's not about product, it's entirely about go-to-market.

Don't have too much faith in your experiment in India.