InformationWeek

etwork Appliance Inc. says it has a quick fix for companies looking to save on bandwidth. This week it will unveil what it says is the first enterprise content-delivery network in a box.

The bundled offering, which includes software from Novadigm Inc. and Widevine Technologies Inc., is designed to let users implement caching over existing networks. "We're trying to make this a faster and easier build," says Amit Pandey, a Network Appliance marketing director.

Caching is gaining favor as companies look to push big graphics and multimedia files out to users for online training, videoconferencing, and other applications. Corporate spending on streaming-video technology alone will jump from $140 million last year to $2.8 billion in 2005, according Jupiter Media Metrix. Network Appliance needs a hot growth market: Its stock price has slumped more than 90% since October, and last week it warned investors that results for its fourth quarter ending April 27 will miss estimates.

Network Appliance's ECDN Starter Kit sells for about $50,000 and includes three NetCache C1105 appliance servers to support up to three branch offices. The $200,000 Flagship Package includes 10 C1105 appliances. Both include a storage device.

Analysts like the all-in-one approach. "It's very elegant," says the Yankee Group's William Hurley. Caching reduces network traffic by pushing big files to servers in branch offices where they can be stored and accessed locally.

New York investment bank Merrill Lynch, which pushes research and other content to staffers worldwide, says its caching network cuts bandwidth usage on international links by as much as 40%. "And it helps us keep people in the field up-to-date," says John Russo, chief technology officer for the bank's International Private Client Group.

Meanwhile, a Compaq and Inktomi alliance should yield new enterprise caching products by June. With the service-provider market slowing, specialists Akamai, Digital Island, and F5 Networks will also push harder into the market for enterprise content delivery.