Combination Will Add Advanced Analytics to Industry's Richest Network and Application Performance Management PlatformWESTFORD, Mass., Feb 14, 2005 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- NetScout Systems, Inc.
(Nasdaq: NTCT), a leading provider of enterprise-wide network and application
performance management products and solutions, today announced that it has
entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the business and assets of
privately held Quantiva Inc., a provider of automated analytics solutions for
application performance management, for approximately $9 million in cash,
subject to closing adjustments. The acquisition will extend NetScout's unified
network and application performance management solution by automating the
process of detecting and diagnosing performance problems before they
significantly impact IT end users.
Quantiva's patent-pending technology uses real time performance metrics
collected from third party instrumentation (now to include NetScout's nGenius
System) to establish statistically expected behavior values using advanced
modeling and analytics. When a measurement such as the response time of a
critical business application or jitter in a voice call is recognized as being
outside of the expected range, Quantiva's software automatically performs
further analysis to determine the likely cause.
Quantiva's founder, Ron Hiller, was ideally qualified to address this
challenge, having studied anomaly detection in depth at Bell Labs and having
secured the services of Princeton University statisticians to refine and adapt
his leading-edge statistical techniques. The resulting solution is dynamic
and self-learning, eliminating the need to manually set thresholds, a
typically tedious and error-prone process. It also spots potential problems
earlier than other methods by detecting performance anomalies rather than
depending on external alarms. The final outcome is fewer, more reliable
alarms, accompanied by actionable diagnostic results, allowing IT staff to be
more productive and more effective in maintaining high business service
levels.
"NetScout customers have been asking for more effective ways to leverage
our rich performance data to directly improve service performance. Their goal
is to detect potential problems before they impact application end users,"
said Anil Singhal, president and CEO of NetScout Systems. "Combining our
superior data set with Quantiva's data-driven anomaly detection and
Progressive Analytics(TM) technology, we can shorten both the time to detect
problems and the time to fix them. Although other vendors are trying to solve
this problem, their results are limited by a lack of access to highly granular
flow-based performance data spanning the network, the servers, and the
applications."
"NetScout has completed the task of consolidating performance data from
many sources in complex environments through our CDM technology," continued
Mr. Singhal. "Our next step is to help our users put this data set to use in
the business-focused, proactive management of their mission-critical network
and application services. We consider automating performance management as a
key step toward the autonomic application delivery infrastructure that the IT
industry is now defining."
"With this move, NetScout is directly addressing key challenges we have
seen our clients encounter," said John Morency, principal, Transitional Data
Systems, a consulting firm that works closely with enterprises to help them
set strategies to optimize IT effectiveness. "By automating performance
analysis, NetScout is answering the pervasive need for minimizing MTTR (mean
time to repair) in the face of dramatically increasing complexity within
today's converging networks all while keeping costs under control. The
combination of Quantiva's progressive analytics with NetScout's high
granularity flow data represents a real opportunity to drive up the ROI on
NetScout's solution as well as the underlying infrastructure."
The acquisition, subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to
close early in NetScout's first quarter of fiscal 2006. Quantiva employees
will become NetScout employees, and Quantiva's New Jersey office will become a
NetScout center for analytics development and expertise.
Conference Call and Webcast:
NetScout Systems will host a conference call today at 8:30 a.m. ET, which
will be webcast live through the Company's website at
http://www.netscout.com/investors . Alternatively, people can listen to the
call by dialing 800-230-1951 for U.S./Canada and 612-332-0636 for
international callers. A replay of the call and the webcast will be available
after 10:15 a.m. ET on February 14 for one week. The number for the replay is
800-475-6701 for U.S./Canada and 320-365-3844 for international callers. The
access code is 770521.
About Quantiva
Quantiva is the leading provider of automated analytics for application
performance management. Based in Princeton, New Jersey, Quantiva is a private
firm backed by leading venture capital firms, including Castile Ventures and
DFJ Gotham. Further information is available at http://www.quantiva.com .
About NetScout Systems, Inc.
NetScout Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTCT) is a market leader and pioneer of
integrated network and application performance management products and
solutions that unify performance across the enterprise. NetScout's nGenius
Performance Management System is helping more than 3000 leading companies
increase their return on infrastructure investments by optimizing the
performance of networks and applications according to business priorities.
NetScout is headquartered in Westford, Massachusetts and has offices
worldwide. Further information is available at http://www.netscout.com .
2004 NetScout Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. NetScout and the
NetScout logo, and nGenius are registered trademarks of NetScout Systems, Inc.
The CDM logo, and MasterCare and the MasterCare logo, are trademarks of
NetScout Systems, Inc. Other brands, product names and trademarks are
property of their respective owners. NetScout reserves the right, at its sole
discretion, to make changes at any time in its technical information and
specifications, and service and support programs.
Safe Harbor:
Forward-looking statements in this release are made pursuant to the safe
harbor provisions of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
Investors are cautioned that statements in this press release, which are not
strictly historical statements, including statements concerning the expected
closing and effects of the acquisition, expected synergies and product
offerings resulting from the acquisition and the plans, objectives and future
financial performance of NetScout, constitute forward-looking statements which
involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from
the forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties which could cause
actual results to differ include, without limitation, risks and uncertainties
associated with the Company's ability to close the acquisition in a timely
fashion and integrate the acquisition successfully, costs associated with the
acquisition, the ability to achieve market introduction and acceptance of new
products from the acquisition, difficulties in managing geographically
dispersed operations, and other factors relating to acquisitions generally, as
well as the Company's relationships with strategic partners, dependence upon
broad-based acceptance of the Company's network performance management
solutions, the Company's ability to achieve and maintain a high rate of
growth, introduction and market acceptance of new products and product
enhancements such as the delivery of nGenius product platform probes and
software solutions and the implementation of the Company's CDM Technology
strategy, the ability of the Company to take advantage of service provider
opportunities, competitive pricing pressures, reliance on sole source
suppliers, successful expansion and management of direct and indirect
distribution channels and dependence on proprietary technology, as well as
risks associated with a continued climate of tight IT spending, and risks of
further slowdowns or downturns in economic conditions generally and in the
market for network performance management solutions specifically. For a more
detailed description of the risk factors associated with the Company, please
refer to the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended
March 31, 2004 and its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended
December 31, 2004 on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
NetScout assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information
contained in this press release or with respect to the announcements described
herein.
SOURCE NetScout Systems, Inc.
Peggy Flynn of NetScout Systems, +1-978-614-4162, or flynnp@netscout.com; or Dawn
Sullivan of Schwartz Communications, +1-781-684-0770, or netscout@schwartz-pr.com
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