Pros
Riverbed offers the superior product solution in the WAN optimization space. The company's engineering and R&D staff is excellent.
Cons
Typical first level sales management's role is that of rolling up forecasts and attempting to insert oneself into field sales activity but with no clear picture of where and how to add value. The rising tide of increasing sales and strong customer adoption because of the performance of the solution have many first level field sales managers believing that they are the proximate cause for the success in the various sales territories when in most cases, the real value was added by the field sales and engineering team. This same success has unfortunately bred an arrogance on the part of the field sales team in the eyes of many customers - not everywhere - but in enough places that this perception has been frequently published. There has also been a tendency to regard all territories as equal in opportunity and assigning them all similar quotas; reality, of course, has a Chicago as markedly different than a Tucson.