DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, May 27, 2012 – Blue Coat Systems, Inc., the technology leader in Web security and WAN optimization solutions, announced that IBM veteran, Venkat Raghavan has joined as senior vice president of research and development.

Venkat brings a 20 year track record of delivering world-class enterprise security products and market-leading innovation to Blue Coat. Venkat will lead the company’s product management and research and development organization, and report directly to Blue Coat chief executive officer, Greg Clark.
 
“Venkat arms Blue Coat to deliver a new class of security and optimization solutions to enterprises battling security and business operational risks created by shadow IT systems, applications moving to the cloud and the explosive adoption of BYOD,” said Greg Clark. “Blue Coat is aggressively expanding our executive team with results-driven executives like Venkat, who will redefine the way enterprises protect and optimize their systems, data and people.”
 
“The boundaries of the extended enterprise are at risk with the lack of governance for the use of cloud-based systems, rich Internet applications and employees that bring their own devices to the workplace,” said Raghavan. “This, combined with the growing sophistication of malware and advanced persistent threats, creates the need for a new type of security system that protects the enterprise, as a highly mobile workforce demands anytime and anywhere access to corporate applications and data. I am very excited to join Blue Coat to lead innovation and deliver the next generation of security and optimization products to our customers.”
 
According to the Blue Coat 2012 Web Security Report, companies confront an average of 5,000 Web threats each month. Those threats are increasing as malware targets expand from desktops and laptops to mobile devices. One industry research report showed a 155 percent increase in malware activity across all mobile platforms in 2011. Enterprises now require new proactive user-based Web defenses, leading to the rapid adoption of the Blue Coat Cloud Service and Blue Coat® ProxySG® family of appliances.
 
Prior to joining Blue Coat, Raghavan led engineering and development for IBM Internet Security Systems portfolio, where he was responsible for worldwide engineering and development of security software and hardware-optimized security appliances. Raghavan joined IBM through its acquisition of Dascom, where he was responsible for the security and storage product portfolios. Prior to IBM, Raghavan was senior technology architect at Freddie Mac and senior software engineer at Harris Corporation.
 
Raghavan holds an M.B.A. in marketing from George Washington University, an M.S. in Computer Science from Clemson University, and a B.E. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from PSG College of Technology.
 
About Blue Coat Systems
Blue Coat Systems is a leading provider of Web security and WAN optimization solutions.  Blue Coat offers solutions that provide the visibility, acceleration and security required to optimize and secure the flow of information to any user, on any network, anywhere.  This application intelligence enables enterprises to tightly align network investments with business requirements, speed decision making and secure business applications for long-term competitive advantage.  Blue Coat also offers service provider solutions for managed security and WAN optimization, as well as carrier-grade caching solutions to save on bandwidth and enhance the end-user Web experience.  Blue Coat is a Thoma Bravo company. For additional information, please visit www.bluecoat.com.
Blue Coat, WebPulse, K9 Web Protection and the Blue Coat logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Blue Coat Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.
 
For more information, please contact:

Manal Abi Rafeh
Blue Coat Systems ME
Telephone: +971 4  3911620
Fax: +971 4 3911635
Email: manal.abirafeh@Blue Coat.com

Media Contact:
Colin Saldanha
PR Consultant
PROCRE8
Dubai - UAE
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Email: colin@procre8.biz