The market for SSL VPNs right now is hot. Many, many people around world are evaluating these products, said F5 CEO John McAdam. We see a lot of major enterprises doing this especially those with large mobile workforces.
Sales of FirePass, the product F5 brought in with the uRoam acquisition, were $1.5m or 5% of revenue in the company’s first fiscal quarter to December 31, which was the first full quarter of uRoam’s contribution.
F5 had been targeting SSL VPN sales of $1m, according to CFO Steve Coburn. He added that the company expects fiscal second-quarter FirePass sales to exceed $2m. Our pipeline is strong, he said.
For the quarter, F5’s total net income was $3.8m, up from $520,000 a year ago. Revenue was up 33% at $36.1m. Its core Big-IP devices were credited with the growth – SSL VPNs are still immature and demand for its Blade Controllers is weak.
F5 plans to make FirePass a component of several products on its 2004 roadmap. The company expects to deliver a version of its core Big-IP product with FirePass built into it toward the middle of the year.
We’ve been really focusing on increasing the performance on that integration, senior VP of product development Jeff Stockdale said. McAdam said F5 will put FirePass on the next release of Big-IP, codenamed Buffalo Jump, set to ship mid-year.
NetScreen also reported yesterday that its Neoteris acquisition, now a business unit called Secure Access Products, brought in more than expected, but this may have been due to the acquisition closing earlier than expected.
The firewall/VPN specialist told analysts that it sold $2.2m of SSL VPNs in the days between the deal closing on December 14, and the end of its first fiscal quarter on December 31. That may have been about $1m more than anticipated.
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
