"Their approach from the security side is a better, stronger play for them rather than trying to go head-to-head in Riverbed's game," Corbo says. "That's really a difficult play for anybody, just in terms of the way Riverbed has cemented their position there."

According to a conducted by TheInfoPro, Blue Coat sits behind Silver Peak, Cisco and Riverbed in the WAN optimization market. Daniel Kennedy, the firm's research director for Information Security, says "something macro would have to happen to upset this balance going into 2013."

Blue Coat's new strategy is one of many developments to take shape in the WAN optimization market in 2012. Riverbed has announced a to help improve application performance for its Steelhead WAN optimization customers, while Silver Peak has of its own products.

As IDC , the WAN optimization market is experiencing some significant changes as revenue comes pouring in. By the end of this year, the WAN application delivery sector will reach $1.3 billion in revenues, helping to drive 8.7% overall growth in the network equipment market, IDC says.

Colin Neagle covers Microsoft security and network management for Network World. Keep up with his blog: Rated Critical, follow him on Twitter: @ntwrkwrldneagle. Colin's email is cneagle@nww.com.