That said, however, the market for such devices doesn't appear to be drying up anytime soon.

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"We don't have any use cases where we found that you absolutely need to have a physical appliance," said Certeon CTO and Vice President of Engineering Donato Buccella. "There isn't a single place where we would say, 'Oh, this cannot be done with software.'"

Of course, that's dependent on the presence of a modern solution, he added. And there are a number of other factors that make the question of hardware's obsolescence in the WAN optimization sector a lot more complicated, noted Riverbed Chief Scientist Mark Day.

For the branch office -- which may or may not have technically savvy staffers on-site -- the relative simplicity of a physical appliance is still highly attractive.