I can only see bankruptcy and liquidation is the only end game I can think of. The other options would be IPO or acquisition. There is no way they can IPO until they become reasonably profitable, which I see no path towards. Acquisition would be an option if riverbed had technology that another company wanted or a portfolio that complimented the buyer. I don’t think either of those conditions exist. Maybe Broadcom would buy riverbed just to su-k it dry but I don’t think there is enough meat on the bone. The only scenario I can see is the current owners su-king the company dry, then closing shop. Anyone else see any other possibility?
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re: HistoryDoesntLie - I think you missed SkipWare (WANOp for satellites) and FlowTrack (security), unless those came in with other acquisitions. Not exactly a stellar resume either way.
Omg how does RT continue to baffle people with BS? the guy has no vision, credibility and is a perfect example of Dilberts Weasel behavior!
Don't forget about IQ. That product was dead before it was born. What started as a plan to modernize AppResponse turned into RT & AR's science project looking for a problem to solve. They took engineering resources we couldn't spare from products that were making money, which accelerated their decline. Years later there's still only 1 customer and they've made next to nothing on it. Why it survives I don't understand
Riverbed never bought a competitive product to ki-l it off. They always started confident that they would make it profitable and then proceeded to destroy any value that was present by neglecting it, or even worse, "enhancing" it which ultimately made it worse. The products either died outright, were sold for pennies on the dollar, or are still on a path towards eventual death.
The notable ones I remember are:
Mazu 2009 - Profiler still lives as the #3 product. Probably their most successful acquisition.
Cace 2010 - Shark is gone, merged into ARX in that multi-year Alloy debacle that AR was in charge of. Do they even sell AirPcap anymore?
Aptimize 2011 - I think this got sold off to Brocade in 2015
Zeus 2011 - Stingray became SteelApp and was sold to Brocade in 2015
OPNET 2012 - AppResponse is still the #1 product, but very neglected. Almost every other product is dead or on life support.
Ocedo 2016 - This was DESTROYED by riverbed trying to turn a SMB product into an enterprise product, ultimately making it a NO LONGER EXISTS product. Then they OEM's Versa and lost money on most of those sales.
Aternity 2016 - Still the #2 product but plagued with design flaws that RT refuses to fix. This product will die unless they replace RT and get a team to rebuild it.
Xirrus 2017 - Sold to Cambium Networks in 2019. What a waste of time and money.
Riverbed has an awful track record. It's where good products go to die.
Any company that was almost acquired by them should thank their stars that the deal fell through.
Am I missing any?
Riverbed is a shadow of its former self with ZERO chance of profitability or re-IPO. The window to be acquired has passed, if not nearly passed. No one wants/needs this technology because bigger players have integrated it into their offerings. The money Riverbed takes in is to keep the lights on. The company continues to smarty shed talent and retain deadweight upper management. This place is in the dumps.
I can hardly wait. It’s maddening to watch incompetence at the ELT drive a company into the toilet. I’m sure that RT and his minions are so proud of “effluvio”. They loved to tell the “old guard” how they were doing it wrong and made sure to get rid of any competent employees because they dared point out that the emperor had his b-m hanging out. Better to replace them with cheap muppets that didn’t question their decisions.
I see no path to outright profitability, no; not with the current leadership and products. Don't underestimate how much money comes in from renewals out of sheer inertia, though. I've seen customers keep paying for years for a product that didn't even have any bug fixes or security updates, just because the invoices kept coming and it was never a big enough cost in any one year to chase down. A company with no self-esteem can run for a long time like that if they keep replacing senior people with junior people in cheaper countries.
They don't have to sell the whole company, either. They talk up the whole Alluvio thing, because they'd probably prefer to sell the whole thing in one go if they can, but there are a few logical ways to divide things up and sell it all off in parts. Some of them would be acquihires: they don't want Riverbed's products but they'd get an assortment of people with varying levels of expertise developing and selling in a particular field. Riverbed's customer list and relationships are for sale too, and some of those are very valuable, especially if the new owner portrays themselves as rescuing customers from being stuck with ancient abandoned tech. Sometimes a competitor will buy up a rival product just to ki-l it off, too. Riverbed's done that, but at this point I expect everyone assumes Riverbed will collapse on its own for free, so I wouldn't count on it.
But yeah, IPO is not in the cards. Riverbed and its products just have no future.