Appcito Acquisition is ‘Something that is going to set A10 apart’
It was an exciting and historic week for A10 Networks, which included the company’s first acquisition. As industry publication eWeek describes the launch, “the combination of A10’s legacy on-premises application delivery controller (ADC), the cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) and secure application capabilities inherited from Appcito will allow A10 to bridge the gap and enable customers to make the move more easily to the cloud.”
During the week, industry press coverage around the world was extremely positive, as journalists saw this announcement as “something that is going to set A10 apart” with similar commentary that A10 seems to be more nimble and agile now and will be the ones that are stirring up the marketplace.”
The Appcito acquisition allows A10 to establish its cloud strategy.
“We’re not playing either side independent of the others,” A10 VP of Marketing Neil Wu Becker told Light Reading. “We feel our customers are living in both worlds. There is a lot of marketing hype on leaving the old world and going into the cloud, or resisting and staying in the data center. But our strategy is to be sensible and bridge both worlds.”
This sentiment was shared across the industry. Read what other industry pundits are saying about this week’s acquisition and launch.
CRN: ‘A10 Networks Acquires Appcito To Become “First Cloud-Native” ADC Company’
Kamal Anand, CEO of Appcito, told CRN that A10 is giving channel partners the opportunity to move in the same cloud direction as their enterprise customers, in contrast to competitors who are “stuck with the traditional technology.”
According to Mark Miller, partner at M&S Technologies, “This is something that’s going to be a very flexible, licensing-type of a product and that’s going to play well into what customers need … Some of the things that I’ve seen the competitors come out with have been, quite frankly, boring.”
Anand continues with CRN, “We are the only vendor today that has a cloud-native application delivery offering and it’s very interesting to channel partners as it gives them an opportunity … for a replacement of other ADC vendors, as their customer base is moving to cloud.”
Miller also echoed this sentiment: “We’re seeing from A10 a vision to move forward and moving the sales away from their competitors and setting themselves apart … It’s going to be some really new and different offerings that we didn’t have before that we can talk to customers about [and] that not many people have.”
“The company establishes a cloud business unit that will complement the application delivery controller and security services appliances,” starts eWEEK writer Jeffrey Burt.
“We were heading that way anyway, but we’re now there,” Becker told eWEEK. “We were cloud-ready. With Appcito, we are cloud-native.
“We’re not running away from our heritage … and we’re not necessarily resisting the cloud,” Becker said. “We’re embracing both.”
Former Appcito CEO Kamal Anand, who is now vice president and general manager of A10’s cloud business unit, also told eWEEK “that the combination of A10 and Appcito lets A10 address two key trends in the industry — the move toward the cloud and the evolving microservice and container architectures. Appcito brings SaaS solutions, multi-cloud capabilities — including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, VMware, OpenStack and Google Cloud Platform — and the microservices and container strengths into the mix.”
SDxCentral: ‘A10 Embarks on a Cloud Journey by Buying Appcito’
“Nobody has a cloud-native offering among the leading ADC players,” Anand explained to SDxCentral.
SDxCentral managing editor Craig Matsumoto notes that “A10 is not abandoning its original business of ADC appliances. But there’s no denying that this business is being changed by the advent of the cloud. The specific functions inside an ADC — load balancing in particular — are increasingly thought of as ephemeral devices on the cloud.”
A10 was already headed in a cloudy direction and possibly could have completed this work on its own, but buying 2-year-old Appcito gives the company a significant boost, former Appcito CEO Kamal Anand told Matsumoto.
Network World: ‘A10 Networks Makes Pivot to Cloud With Appcito Acquisition’
A10 Networks, with its acquisition this week of startup Appcito, has become the latest Application Delivery Control (ADC) company to make a big push into supporting cloud applications.
“A10 is pivoting to the cloud, and that’s something they have to do to address the changing application profiles and application-delivery requirements of enterprise customers,” IDC analyst Brad Casemore told Network World.
“Everyone wants to be more agile and the adoption of cloud and microservices are steps in that direction,” Kamal Anand, CEO and Co-founder of Appcito, told Enterprise Networking Planet. “The name ‘cito’ in Latin literally means fast and agile and that underlies what we do.”
Kamal added that the overall plan is to provide additional value to A10’s existing customer, while also providing new capabilities to address areas where A10 hasn’t previously had customers.
Channel Partners: ‘A10 Networks to Acquire Appcito, Target ADC Market’
“Appcito fits seamlessly into A10, and it will help our customers become even more agile as they bridge traditional and cloud application environments,” Kirsten Young, the company’s vice president of worldwide channels, told Channel Partners.
“With this combination, A10 now has the richest portfolio in the ADC market, not only to address the traditional applications or traditional infrastructure, but to address the other extreme – cloud-native applications both on public cloud and private cloud,” former Appcito CEO Kamal Anand said.
A10’s Affinity Global Partner Program touts efficient processes to make it easier to do business; creative, demand-generating campaigns; world-class sales, marketing, training and technical support; and the ability to respond quickly to partner needs and reward results.
TechTarget: ‘A10 Buys Appcito to Bolster Cloud-Based ADC Services’
A10 Networks has acquired startup Appcito to run faster in the race with rivals to deliver application delivery controllers to enterprises building or subscribing to cloud-computing platforms.
ADC as a service is what companies that are building or using cloud computing want from their vendors, Andrew Lerner, an analyst at Gartner, said in a story for TechTarget. “Organizations are starting to look toward ADC vendors to provide services in nontraditional deployment mechanisms.”
“With the Appcito acquisition, A10 has moved right into the forefront of the frame,” said IDC analyst Brad Casemore. Organizations will spend $37.1 billion this year on cloud computing, an increase of 15.5 percent over last year, according to IDC. Spending on traditional computing is expected to decline by 4.4 percent.
IT Business Edge: ‘A10 Networks Acquires Appcito to Accelerate ADC Cloud Push’
Kamal Anand, CEO and co-founder of Appcito, says the acquisition of Appcito puts A10 Networks in a better position to service the growing demand for ADC functionality in the cloud. With the rise of container applications employing microservices that are mainly deployed in the cloud, there will be more competition for IT infrastructure resources than ever.
The Appcito ADC was designed from the ground up to address that, Anand explained to Mike Vizard … Now, it’s just a matter of how long it will be before IT organizations see the value in employing a more sophisticated ADC approach to managing those cloud resources.
Converge Network Digest: ‘A10 Powers into Cloud ADC Market with Acquisition of Appcito’
The company said the acquisition helps its customers bridge traditional and cloud application environments. Appcito fits seamlessly into A10 Networks’ A10 Harmony solution architecture, which was introduced in early 2015 and supports secure application service offerings that span traditional data centers, private clouds, public clouds, and hybrid clouds.
Silicon Valley Business Journal: ‘A10 Networks Buys Cloud App Management Startup’
Appcito was named one of Gartner’s “Cool Vendors in Enterprise Networking” last year because of its technology, which helps users control how cloud applications are deployed and operated.
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