SUNNYVALE, Calif., November 12, 2008 - Blue Coat Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BCSI), the leader in WAN Application Delivery and Secure Web Gateway, today announced that Suning Appliance Co., Ltd. has deployed Blue Coat^® ProxySG^® appliances to increase the performance of its SAP application across 700 stores and reduce bandwidth consumption. ProxySG appliances both accelerate application access and control traffic across the Wide Area Network (WAN) according to corporate policies, enabling Suning to build a scalable application infrastructure.

With more than 100,000 employees sending information through its headquarters to logistics, retail and customer service centers, Suning was experiencing delays in its critical applications, such as SAP. To speed application response times and create a LAN-like experience across its 700 stores, Suning deployed Blue Coat ProxySG appliances. With faster access to business-critical applications, Suning has increased the productivity of its employees and improved customer service by making its order processing more efficient.

Chen Cheng, from Suning noted that communication and collaboration between the company's business and functional divisions has greatly improved since the company first deployed Blue Coat ProxySG appliances to accelerate application response times. Additionally, the ProxySG appliances act as a strong application-oriented foundation that will scale with the company. Based on the benefits Suning has seen, the company plans to expand its Blue Coat deployment as its retail operation grows.

ProxySG appliances also allow Suning to enforce corporate policies across its retail base, ensuring the network is optimized to support key business applications and is protected from Web-based malware. Prior to deploying Blue Coat, heavy use of instant messaging and peer-to-peer applications was impacting Suning's ability to effectively manage enterprise resources through SAP. With ProxySG appliances, granular control can be set on a per user, application or content basis, allowing Suning to provide its employees with productivity-enhancing applications while limiting the impact of other applications on performance.

The combination of application acceleration and granular control to enforce policy-based management has decreased bandwidth consumption by 63 percent and backup times by 33 percent, significantly reducing Suning's network costs. Additionally, the use of the appliances mitigates the threat of Web-based malware infiltrating the network.

"As a rapidly growing retail brand, Suning needs a flexible network that can scale to efficiently support an increasing number of stores, users and applications," said Matt Young, vice president of Asia Pacific at Blue Coat Systems. "Blue Coat ProxySG appliances provide the visibility, security and control that Suning requires to continue expanding its presence without compromising application performance or employee productivity."

Suning is China's leading chain retailer and one of the China Top 100 Commercial, Scientific and Technological Enterprises. Today, Suning has more than 700 chain stores in over 190 cities, with annual net profit increasing by over 90 percent for three consecutive years.

Blue Coat ProxySG appliances secure and accelerate applications across the distributed organization, increasing network performance while supporting policy-based compliance with corporate priorities. By accelerating the necessary business applications and limiting others, enterprises like Suning can improve productivity without compromising security.