"This company has been very quiet, not only in the years when it was held by [McAfee], but lately," Gibson said. "Marketing is very critical, so we'll be working on delivery of our message and pounding it home."

He said Network General's greatest strength is in the "robustness of the technology," pointing to the way Sniffer software inspects 100 percent of the packets in a network for thorough analysis, whereas competitors inspect random samples of packets.

Technology innovation has been a top priority at the company for the past 19 months, with 30 percent of its revenue invested in research, Gibson said. On Nov. 7, Network General announced four product revisions and a new Sniffer Enterprise Solution architecture.

Monitoring and analysis of application performance, not just network elements, has become the focus of Network General's products, Gibson said.

In July 2004, two private equity firms, Silver Lake Partners and Texas Pacific Group Ventures, jointly created Network General with the successful acquisition of the Sniffer Technologies division from McAfee Inc. (formerly Network Associates).