F5 Networks

Best known for its server load balancers, F5 Networks pioneered the traffic management market. Its load-balancing switches, working behind the scenes, ensure traffic loads are evenly distributed across Web servers.

Last year, the company introduced Big-IP, its Internet traffic management switch designed to help businesses get better performance from their networks. Today, F5 addresses three main areas of application delivery networking: application security, application optimization and application availability.

Over the years, the company has made several strategic acquisitions to strengthen its technology portfolio. In 2003, it bought uRoam which develops products that connect remote computers to corporate networks using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption, and a year later, F5 paid US$29 million for MagniFire, an application firewall startup.

In its most recent acquisition, F5 announced in September 2005 the purchase of application accelerator provider Swan Labs for US$43 million. The acquisition was completed on Oct. 4.

The Seattle-based company reported healthy financials for its third fiscal quarter ended Sep. 30, 2005. Compared to the same quarter a year ago, revenues were up 65 percent to US$73.1 million from US$44.2 million, while net income was US$14.0 million compared to US$7.4 million.