Mitra comes on board from Sun MicroSystems India, where he was General Manager for BFSI managing accounts like Punjab National Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce. He has more than 14 years of experience in sales and a proven track record of ability to lead, build, manage, and grow business in competitive environments. Prior to Sun MicroSystems, he was the Director -- Business Development for Sybase Software India from 2004 to 2007 and contributed significantly to the growth of the India market. In his new role Mitra will be responsible for growing the India market for Blue Coat by enhancing the partner base and building on the SMB segment. Currently, Blue Coat operates with local partners like Datacraft, Wipro and Apara.

Commenting on the appointment, Matthew Young, vice president sales, Asia-Pacific said "We welcome Kumar to our team. With his experience and background, he will be a great asset to us. I am confident he will help grow our reach and market share further."

According to the IDC semi-annual Application Networking Tracker result published in November 2008, Blue Coat led the WAN Application Delivery market in India (after the acquisition of Packeteer), with an aggregated market share of 45 per cent in 1H08. WAN application delivery in India showed an increase of 92 per cent year on year to US$6.8 million (Rs 338,164,000), from 1H07 according to the report. Application delivery has a key role to play especially in certain verticals where real time access is particularly important. The mobile client device segment is also sited as a catalyst for growth going forward.