As software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) vendor Silver Peak touts its 400th customer deployment of its EdgeConnect technology, company Founder and CEO David Hughes said the growth can be attributed to EdgeConnect’s capabilities beyond just connectivity.

“Our success is the outcome of demand for a reinvented WAN,” Hughes said. “People really want a new way to build their WAN, which includes SD-WAN but also includes performance and security concerns.”

Silver Peak’s EdgeConnect combines WAN optimization, routing, and a stateful firewall to consolidate branch office functions.

Hughes expects to see technology from smaller, pure-play SD-WAN startups being paired with other technologies through acquisitions to provide a more well-rounded offering.

“I think we’re at a transition point where the SD-WAN market is growing like crazy, but customers are looking for a broader solution, which is making it harder for the pure-play startups,” Hughes said. “There will be a wave of consolidation happening among the pure-plays.”

Although SD-WAN is proving to be a powerful market driver, it will be difficult for all of these startups to gain enough traction to sustain a significant amount of market share, and there will be some that don’t succeed, said IDC Analyst Brad Casemore.

“In SD-WAN there are a lot of [legacy] companies with an installed base of customers that is difficult to displace like Cisco and Nuage,” Casemore said. “These are the companies in the position to make acquisitions and take advantage of their presence in the market.”

Cisco's recent announcement that it is acquiring Viptela is a case in point.