From the 'that's good coin' files:

A new report from Infonetics Research has pegged the value of the WAN optimization market in 2008 to be worth over $1 billion. That's a new milestone for the market and in my opinion clearly shows that demand for WAN optimization is real.

"In 2008, the WAN optimization appliance market crossed the $1 billion mark for the first time, increasing 29 percent  from the previous year ," Matthias Machowinski, Directing Analyst, Enterprise Voice and Data, Infonetics Research said in a statement. "Impressive results for a year in which the world's economies slowed and many related networking segments struggled."

In terms of who is leading the pack, Infonetics has Cisco in the lead for revenues followed by Blue Coat in second and Riverbed in third place for 2008.