OPNET was junk and the people behind it were liars. The products are all outdated and it was dysfunctionally managed. Riverbed went down when it bought OPNET, the biggest mistake made by Jerry. OPNET was on its way to the graves and if it wasn't for Riverbed, it would have suffered an even bigger layoff and would probably be shut down by now. The former OPNET sales teams were some of the dumbest and laziest sales "professionals" I have ever worked with. The product suites were non-competitive and there's nothing we could do to pitch it well in front of our customers. OPNET destroyed Riverbed. It was the biggest distraction for this once great company.
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I think it's kind of silly to suggest that either OpNet or Riverbed were bad companies before the merger. Both have a long public record of success prior to the merger... it's all easy to validate. Lots of repeat customers, earnings calls (with audited financials), analyst recognition... not much to debate there.
The obvious fact is that Riverbed failed to integrate the OpNet assets well. The acquisition itself would have made sense if there was a proper plan to get value out of the new combined offering. Obviously there were different skills and cultures... a smart leadership team would have worked together to align them. It didn't happen. I'm not suggesting that either side was perfect. Who knows exactly which domino fell first. But it's pretty clear that neither company was falling apart before the acquisition, and who can take responsibility for what happened afterwards? Who was in charge?
Doubtful OPNET had any other offers. Who else stupid enough to buy OPNET? OPNET is a piece of $hit that should have stayed with the Cohen brothers. The products are dated and not competitive while the leadership clueless chasing random deals instead of a long term strategy. The employees were just tricked by the brothers. Agreed didn't help that Riverbed sales is beyond lazy and dumb but now that I am at a competitor it is clear the OPNET products are just not even close to being in the running. Riverbed stupid not to have seen it, now Riverbed deserves what it got for being stupid.
OPNET had a couple of offers from a few companies. Riverbed offer was probably the best. If anything, it was Riverbed's fault because they didnt really understand the integration pain points, or how hard it would be to sell OPNET products by Riverbed salesman who seem to have as deep a technical knowledge say as used car salesman. In all fairness, I shouldn't blame the sales guys, their job was simplified by a great product(Steelhead) that had an easy upsell value for branch/data center architectures. It is just that they didn't realize how different OPNET products were. Somebody in RVBD didn't do their homework.