Riverbed Technology has reported its market lead for the first quarter in the wide area network (WAN) optimisation sector.

Based on figures from industry analyst Gartner, Riverbed leads with a 24.2 per cent stake in WAN optimisation controllers (WOC) and a 31.4 per cent revenue share in WOC advanced platforms. Eric Wolford, senior vice-president of marketing and business development at Riverbed, says: "Organisations of all sizes are working to build efficiency into their existing IT infrastructure while also embarking on cost-cutting initiatives such as bandwidth reduction, data centre virtualisation and branch IT consolidation."

He adds that a manageable WAN optimisation solution is an essential component in avoiding slow file transfers and poor performance of applications.

Riverbed points out that its share of the advanced platforms market maintains its lead for the first three months of 2009 after being placed ahead of the field in previous quarters.

Among Riverbed's products is the Steelhead appliance, which accelerates application performance across WANs ranging from a few end-users to enterprise-class infrastructure.