According to Germanow, this changing value proposition is substantially disruptive to the market. Therefore, many seek to apply existing technology to new problems, often without a thorough understanding of what they're doing.

"There are a lot of people running around with hammers going 'that's a nail,'" he says.

Rick Tinsley, CEO of WAN optimization provider Silver Peak, says a lot of the new network products are focused on web traffic and cloud technology.

"These areas often get confused. And, frankly, a lot of the analysts in the early days predicted that the [application delivery controller] market ... and the WAN optimization market would ultimately merge. That absolutely has not happened," he asserts.