SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Nov 22, 2011) - [ Riverbed Technology ] (NASDAQ: [ RVBD ]), the IT performance company, today announced that the Riverbed® Steelhead® appliance was named a Best Product of 2011 by Government Computer News (GCN). GCN selected its best products of 2011 based on their ability to provide efficiency toward a specific government requirement. Steelhead appliances help government agencies meet mandates -- to consolidate data centers, reduce costs for IT, and execute on the cloud-first policy -- without compromising performance.

The challenges associated with distance introduced by data center consolidation or a move to the cloud can adversely impact performance and the user experience. Described as the product that "can cut latency out of the cloud" by GCN, Steelhead appliances accelerate application performance and data transfer over the wide area network (WAN). In addition to Steelhead appliances, Riverbed offers a suite of WAN optimization solutions that address performance challenges in public, private, and hybrid cloud environments, including [ Cloud Steelhead ]™, [ Virtual Steelhead ]™ and [ Steelhead Mobile ], which have provided customers with five, 50X, or even up to a 100X improvement in application performance and up to 98 percent data reduction -- both critical for migrating and accelerating the transmission of applications and data deployed in public, private and hybrid clouds.

"The U.S. Federal CIO recently outlined government-wide management reforms to reduce IT spending, increase government's IT expertise and adopt innovative technologies -- all of which build on existing IT initiatives and mandates. As agencies are working towards meeting these mandates, IT leaders are looking for solutions that provide cost savings and deliver performance," said William Hartwell, general manager and senior director of the Federal Markets Division at Riverbed. "U.S. government and agency customers rely on Riverbed Steelhead products to accelerate the performance of their applications, infrastructure and cloud environments, which allows them to deliver a strong ROI, achieve the goals of their IT initiatives and meet federal mandates."

More than 16,000 organizations worldwide depend on Riverbed to understand, optimize and consolidate their IT infrastructure, through solutions that overcome performance issues caused by distance, distributed computing, and ever increasing amounts of data. Riverbed offers IT performance solutions spanning [ WAN optimization ], application-aware network performance management ([ NPM ]), [ application delivery ], Web content optimization ([ WCO ]) and [ cloud data protection ] -- all critical technologies for successful government IT initiatives and for meeting mandates.

GCN's list of best products for 2011 was selected from "Product of the Month" and Reviewer's Choice-designated products tested this year by the GCN Lab. Read the entire GCN article titled, "The 11 Best Products of 2011" at [ http://gcn.com/articles/2011/11/07/11-best-products-of-2011.aspx ].

Visit the Riverbed blog to watch Q&A videos with technical leader Steve Riley as he discusses Federal IT initiatives:

• Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI): [ http://blog.riverbed.com/2011/09/riverbed-technical-lead-steve-riley-qa-on-federal-data-center-consolidation-initiative.html ]
• Federal Cloud First Initiative: [ http://blog.riverbed.com/2011/09/riverbed-technical-lead-steve-riley-qa-on-federal-cloud-first-initiative.html ]
• Federal Telework and Mobility: [ http://blog.riverbed.com/2011/10/riverbed-technical-leader-steve-riley-qa-on-telework-and-mobility.html ]
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI): [ http://blog.riverbed.com/2011/10/riverbed-technical-leader-steve-riley-qa-on-desktop-virtualization.html ]
• Data Protection: [ http://blog.riverbed.com/2011/09/riverbed-technical-lead-steve-riley-qa-on-federal-data-protection.html ]

Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to the expected demand for Riverbed's products and services, statements regarding performance results of Riverbed solutions and customer cost savings resulting from implementation of Riverbed solutions that may suggest likely or certain outcomes, and statements relating to Riverbed's ability to meet the needs of distributed organizations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they do not fully materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements include our ability to react to trends and challenges in our business and the markets in which we operate; our ability to anticipate market needs or develop new or enhanced products to meet those needs; the adoption rate of our products; our ability to establish and maintain successful relationships with our distribution partners; our ability to compete in our industry; fluctuations in demand, sales cycles and prices for our products and services; shortages or price fluctuations in our supply chain; our ability to protect our intellectual property rights; general political, economic and market conditions and events; and other risks and uncertainties described more fully in our documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. More information about these and other risks that may impact Riverbed's business are set forth in our Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on October 28, 2011. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to us as of the date hereof, and we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Any future product, feature or related specification that may be referenced in this release are for information purposes only and are not commitments to deliver any technology or enhancement. Riverbed reserves the right to modify future product plans at any time.

About Riverbed
Riverbed delivers performance for the globally connected enterprise. With Riverbed, enterprises can successfully and intelligently implement strategic initiatives such as virtualization, consolidation, cloud computing, and disaster recovery without fear of compromising performance. By giving enterprises the platform they need to understand, optimize and consolidate their IT, Riverbed helps enterprises to build a fast, fluid and dynamic IT architecture that aligns with the business needs of the organization. Additional information about Riverbed (NASDAQ: [ RVBD ]) is available at [ www.riverbed.com ].

Riverbed and any Riverbed product or service name or logo used herein are trademarks of Riverbed Technology, Inc. All other trademarks used herein belong to their respective owners.