"Branch offices are the core of most businesses ― it’s where companies of all sizes meet their customers," noted John Katsaros, co-founder of IRG. "And today branch office information technology is more important than ever. Meeting the needs of branch office users is not easy as enterprises rely heavily on their networking and computing infrastructures to satisfy the instant expectations of today’s consumers. Application performance at the branch is important. Enterprises need to assure excellent application service to the branch office while at the same time simplifying and cost-reducing IT."

"The 2008 Branch Office IT Market Landscape Report" describes US branch office distribution. The focus on this study is the identification of the market segments that operate the majority of the branch offices in the US and the overall IT spending motivations across these market segments. The study includes estimates of IT spending, WAN broadband utilization and bandwidth requirements across branch offices.

This evolving category of products and services ― what IRG calls the Branch Office Subsystems Market ― is one of the most lucrative IT infrastructure markets. Companies like Akamai, Cisco, Citrix, Expand Networks, Juniper, Riverbed and STRATACACHE provide networking infrastructure and connectivity for improving branch office operations.