IT Week:As chief executive of network vendor F5, what do you think are the main challenges for firms trying to guard their data?

John McAdam: The IT manager's real problem is application security. A lot of companies are talking about security, but not many are sorting out application security. It's an aspect that all the hackers are now focusing on. However, firewalls don't look at application data. If an application fails, a lot of data like, for example, revision numbers, gets fired down the network link, which could be beneficial to hackers sitting at the other end.

IT Week:So you're trying to improve protection here?

Yes. Over the past two years we were able to totally re-architect our products; and our Traffic Management Operating System [TMOS] has been shipping since October. We've made TMOS bi-directional so you can see input and output flows going into the datacentre - and it's the datacentre that needs application security. However, the re-architecting means that we can now add things as modules that other companies may provide as single point systems, which could mean a hardware appliance. For instance, if you go into the datacentre you'll see a lot of boxes for doing SSL [encryption], load balancing and authentication. With TMOS we use a specific module for these tasks. We think that all traffic management security is going to be consolidated and we believe we have a couple of years lead in this area.

IT Week:How closely do you co-operate with other IT vendors on development?

We work at the application level, optimising and delivering those applications going over the network. Although we're a networking company, we tend to work more with the Microsofts and Oracles of the world. We're working on a lot of projects with Microsoft, such as IIS and Live Communications Server. However, our Big-IP hardware tends to sit in the same rack as Dell servers. And we seem to spend less time talking to IT managers and more with the business risk people, who then have to talk with their IT managers.

IT Week:How has competition in the market developed over recent years?

In the past five years the internet has become the standard for deploying applications and you have Cisco focusing on the enterprise space with regards to security, but in the router area - which is where Cisco came from. However, we think that Cisco's way is too low down the network stack at Layer 2/3, since the price per port at Layer 2/3 is dropping towards commodity values, so Cisco is having to add value to this layer. Juniper is doing similar things to Cisco. But to challenge Cisco, Juniper needs to be in the enterprise space, which is why Juniper bought the NetScreen products. Juniper is addressing the application layer, but with Redline and Peribit, it's buying point solutions.

IT Week:Is demand growing much?

Three years ago, we had flat revenues, but since customers started realising the benefits of traffic management [systems], in the first two quarters of this year we have grown at 67 percent, which is up from 2004's 50 percent growth.

About John McAdam

John McAdam has been president and chief executive of F5 Networks since July 2000.

Previously, he was general manager of web server sales at IBM.

Before that McAdam was chief executive of Sequent Computer Systems between January 1995 and August 1999.