KEMP Technologies Makes Dent with Load Balancer Technology in SMB Space

By Carrie Schmelkin

October 05, 2011

When load balancer company KEMP Technologies first entered the market, there was one specific issue it was hoping to address – to create a solution that was affordable for SMBs.

“What we saw was that there was a pretty big gap in that space,” Peter Melerud of KEMP Technologies told TMCnet at Interop 2011 in New York City on Wednesday. “You had your traditional vendors but they focused on enterprise markets and their products are pretty expensive to buy and implement. Some of these products started at $20,000 and moved into the $100,000 mark and most companies need to buy them in pairs. These were not inexpensive products to buy, but if you were a smaller company with less than 1,000 servers it’s hard to justify that cost.”

“We looked at that space and said there is an opportunity for an affordable, easy to use load balancer that is specifically designed to that space,” he added.

And so in 2003, KEMP brought the first load balancer application, the LoadMaster, to the industry, catered specifically to the SMBs.

Even though analysts were not predicting that load balancers would take off in the SMB space –and consequently they were more focused on the enterprise – KEMP decided to jump into the space anyways, according to Melerud.

The payoff was huge.

“We have had pretty dramatic growth since then,” Melerud said, noting that this year KEMP doubled its revenues from last year.

A lot of that growth is happening because of KEMP’s focus on Microsoft applications. For example, when Microsoft Exchange 2010 came out, it required a load balancer because of the way it was restructured. KEMP soon became one of the first Microsoft approved load balancers at the software and hardware level.

Following on this momentum, a year ago, KEMP launched its virtual appliance and became one of the first to have a commercial version of a virtual product.

“Feature and function-wise we provide everything those customers would ever need and then some,” Melerud said. “We bundle support, first-year maintenance, firmware updates all in that price, and that makes it really easy for the customers.”

“We have simplified the process. Microsoft recognized this and said, ‘We can get more penetration in our market if we partner with a company like KEMP,’ and that propelled us into a whole new world,” he added.

KEMP currently offers four models of hardware appliances with the highest end product capable of supporting large environments. Accordingly, even though KEMP’s sweet spot are SMBs, it has also begun to dabble in the enterprise market.

When asked how KEMP distinguishes itself in the load balancer space, Melerud said it’s because of KEMP’s price and the ease of use.

So what’s next on tap for the load balancer company? International expansion and a continued focus on Microsoft.

“We have started to expand into the European market,” Melerud said. “We launched a European headquarters in Ireland a year ago, and that’s proven to be a really huge success for us. They have done way better than we anticipated and it shows.”

“In terms of market segments, we will continue to focus on Microsoft,” he added. “We see a lot of opportunity there specifically in what they are doing in the business application space.”

Edited by Rich Steeves