Riverbed Technology (Nasdaq:RVBD) Looks Good Going Forward

Riverbed Technology (RVBD) reported large fourth quarter sales and profit growth that beat analyst estimates and appeared to calm nervous investors.

The developer of products to safely speed, or "optimize," data and apps over wide-area networks said per-share profit minus items soared 73% to 19 cents from 11 cents in the same quarter last year. Revenue increased 47% to $165.4 million.

For the exiting quarter, Riverbed expects sales in a range of $159 million to $161 million, which would jump 41% to 43% and above the $154.6 million analysts are looking for. Riverbed says it expects gross margin to be level at 78%.

F5 Networks (FFIV), earlier this week, dragged down fellow cloud computing stocks January 19 when it reported sales, and a sales outlook, which missed outlooks. Besides Riverbed, other notable cloud stocks that plummeted included Juniper Networks (JNPR), Aruba Networks (ARUN) and Blue Coat Systems (BCSI).

For full year 2010, Riverbed's per-share profit surged 74% to 59 cents. Full-year 2010 revenue increased 40% to $551.9 million.

Riverbe CEO and co-founder Jerry Kennelly, said, "Riverbed's financial performance is almost unmatched by our technology peers over the past 12 months. Our addressable market is expanding, and our core business drivers are strong."

Wedbush noted, "We think Riverbed represents an attractive way for investors to capitalize on powerful secular trends in technology including datacenter consolidation, datacenter virtualization, and public cloud migrations all of which we expect to continue to gain momentum in 2011. We think the company is entering 2011 with significant momentum and visibility and has potential to continue to exceed estimates over the next several quarters. Our preliminary checks with channel suggest that core WAN optimization market still poised for significant growth as contacts report strong budget flush dynamics in Q4."

Riverbed Technology closed Thursday at $34.91, up $0.62, or 1.80 percent.