F5 Networks Announces Partnership with Carahsoft to Further Enhance Focus on U.S. Federal Market

F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader in Application Delivery Networking today announced, that it has signed a partnership agreement with Carahsoft Technology Corp., a leading government IT solutions provider. The agreement names Carahsoft as a contract aggregator and government distribution partner for F5 Networks. Under the terms of the agreement, Carahsoft will carry F5^® products on its various government contracts, as well as provide dedicated sales, marketing, and order management resources to support F5’s government-focused reseller network and drive demand for F5 solutions.

Details

As a contract aggregator, Carahsoft provides simplified sales engagement processes between federal customers, resellers, and vendors. By partnering with Carahsoft, F5 gains enhanced visibility and access to Carahsoft’s extensive customer base. In addition, Carahsoft maintains partnerships with other industry technology leaders, including VMware, Symantec, SAP, EMC Data Domain, and Adobe, many of which are F5 technology partners. Through this partnership ecosystem, government customers are able to deploy F5 solutions seamlessly alongside other vendors’ technologies to maximize the value of their IT investments.

Key advantages of this partnership include:

• Introduction and Prioritization of Sales Opportunities
  As a specialty contract aggregator and distributor, Carahsoft provides technology partners more direct access to government end-users, which helps identify new opportunities. Because Carahsoft also supports several other product lines that complement F5’s leadership in application delivery and file data management, this partnership provides unique opportunities for solution-selling in the federal space. In addition, Carahsoft’s established relationships will bolster F5’s demand generation efforts, improving the quantity and quality of federal opportunities presented to F5 resellers.
• Increased Efficiency of the Sales Cycle
  Carahsoft’s working relationships with federal agencies help ensure that sales efforts involving a number of technology vendors can be handled efficiently. In a traditional sales engagement, there can be significant delays to the sales cycle when a change in project scope occurs or new technology requirements emerge. Carahsoft’s network of partnerships enables additional vendors to be seamlessly integrated into a sales process, helping customer deployments proceed quickly and productively.
• Improved Access to Virtualization and Cloud Solution Engagements
  Carahsoft is VMware’s leading distributor in the federal market. In addition, F5 is actively involved in partnership activities with VMware and other vendors to help joint customers unlock the full potential of virtualization and cloud deployments. With this new partnership, Carahsoft can leverage the technology alignment between F5 and VMware to help resellers deliver integrated, flexible solutions to meet government customers’ evolving needs and priorities.

Supporting Quotes

“We are pleased to add F5 Networks to our growing portfolio of IT infrastructure solutions,” said Craig P. Abod, Carahsoft president. “We are now able to offer our extensive network of reseller partners and our government customers an application and data delivery architecture that provides absolute service continuity, total reliability, and bulletproof security.”

“With F5 solutions in place, organizations benefit from a unified open architecture that meets the multiple challenges of delivering government applications,” said Dean Darwin, VP of Worldwide Channel Sales at F5. “This partnership with Carahsoft further cements our commitment to the federal space. By maintaining strategic technology and distribution partnerships that focus on the integration, interoperability, and optimization of customer deployments, F5 provides a suite of products and services to help customers build and scale their infrastructures cost-effectively.”

“Carahsoft is well respected for its expertise as a government IT distributor, and F5 is the leader in the application delivery networking and data delivery markets, so we’re excited about the business opportunities this new partnership brings,” said Joel Salamone, President of StorageHawk, an IT storage solutions provider for both the public and private sectors. “The collective expertise and extensive marketing and sales support that Carahsoft and F5 provide will make it easier for us to add value, broaden our customer base, and deliver the more complex, sophisticated application and data delivery solutions our customers require.”

For more information about how F5 Networks can help your organization scale securely and seamlessly, contact Carahsoft at f5@carahsoft.com or visit www.carahsoft.com/f5.

About Carahsoft

Carahsoft Technology Corp. is the trusted Government IT solutions provider. As a top-ranked GSA Schedule Contract holder, Carahsoft serves as the master government aggregator for many of its best-of-breed vendors, supporting an extensive ecosystem of manufacturers, resellers, and consulting partners committed to helping government agencies select and implement the best solution at the best possible value.

The company’s dedicated Solutions Divisions proactively market, sell and deliver products and services from Symantec, EMC Data Domain, VMware, Adobe, Open Source, HR, HP Software, Intelligence, and SAP among others. Carahsoft is consistently recognized by its partners as a top revenue producer, and is listed annually among the industry's fastest growing firms by VAR Business, CRN, Inc., Washington Technology, and the Washington Business Journal. Visit us at http://www.carahsoft.com.

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks is the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), focused on ensuring the secure, reliable, and fast delivery of applications. F5's flexible architectural framework enables community-driven innovation that helps organizations enhance IT agility and dynamically deliver services that generate true business value. F5's vision of unified application and data delivery offers customers an unprecedented level of choice in how they deploy ADN solutions. It redefines the management of application, server, storage, and network resources, streamlining application delivery and reducing costs. Global enterprise organizations, service and cloud providers, and Web 2.0 content providers trust F5 to keep their business moving forward. For more information, go to www.f5.com.

F5 and F5 Networks are trademarks or service marks of F5 Networks, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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