The market for Web performance solutions has experienced significant changes in 2010 and many of the trends that have been driving new dynamics in this market are expected to be even more accelerated in 2011.

Traditionally, these types of solutions have been predominantly deployed by large Web properties (media, entertainment, social networks, etc.) and organizations that are either using their websites to generate revenues or rely on Web portals to share information internally. However, changes in the way that business users are accessing corporate data are causing Web applications to became more than just revenue generating, branding or collaboration tools. In 2010 we have seen applications that are being accessed through Web browsers and delivered over public Internet become more critical beyond business-to-customer (B2C) environments, as organizations are increasingly using these applications to communicate with their employees and partners.

End-user organizations who participated in TRAC’s recent survey reported that they anticipate 11% of overall network traffic that is currently being delivered over corporate private networks to be delivered over public Internet in the next 12 months. Deployments of SaaS applications, more organizations considering and deploying Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) models and looking to achieve cost savings by leveraging advantages of public Internet are increasing the importance of managing Web performance. As organizations are becoming more dependent on the performance of Web applications they are also realizing that some of the same trends that are driving increases in the importance of these applications are also posing new performance management challenges.

New challenges of managing Web performance are forcing both technology vendors and end-user organizations to respond, which in turn is driving new dynamics in this market. Based on TRAC’s recent research, we identified ten areas that are significantly impacting how different flavors on Web performance management solutions are being deployed and managed, as well as some of the capabilities that are becoming more important in this market.

One of the emerging trends in IT performance management is that the proliferation of SaaS and cloud computing technologies are changing how organizations go about using and managing IT services. These trends are adding a new dimension to service level and performance monitoring and organizations are increasingly expecting a similar level of flexibility from their management tools as they are getting from their SaaS and cloud deployments. This also opens up new opportunities for management vendors to differentiate themselves from the competition and increase their presence in new markets by acquiring technologies that are well positioned to address new management challenges.

Our recent article highlighted two technology companies that are likely acquisition targets based on their technology, alignment with key market trends and the ability of their solutions to fill in technology and go-to-market gaps that larger vendors currently have. In part two of this series, we are covering two additional companies that meet the same criteria.

Again, this listing is not based on any inside information.