Despite a tough economy and increased competition in the virtualization market, Hyper9, Inc. today announced the close of a banner year in 2009, capped off by a fourth quarter that was the company's strongest quarter to-date. Demonstrating positive momentum across all areas of the business, Hyper9 won numerous industry accolades in 2009, most recently landing on CIO.com's third-annual list of intriguing innovators in virtualization management, 10 Virtualization Vendors to Watch in 2010.

"Virtualization is no longer a buzzword that people just talk about," said Bill Kennedy, CEO of Hyper9. "In 2009, more enterprises embraced virtualization as an effective way to optimize IT operations. As organizations continue to face the challenge of doing more with less, virtualization will play a strategic role in enhancing the performance and agility of key business initiatives."

Hyper9 attributes its success to several key factors, including new product innovation, an expanded customer base across numerous industries, strategic partnerships and industry accolades. Recent accomplishments include:

• Sales - 4Q09 was the company's largest quarter to-date, with bookings four-times larger than the previous quarter. New contracts came from both private and public sectors across multiple verticals, including travel, sports and entertainment, consumer goods and technology. Key customer wins included: HomeAway, the National Football League, Major League Baseball and Whole Foods, among others.
• Product Innovation - Product innovation continued with the launch of Hyper9's Virtual Environment Optimization Suite, a second-generation virtualization management solution that provides enhanced business insights to address the growing demands of virtualized applications. The company also unveiled an open-sourced version of its Virtualization Mobile Manager.
• Strategic Partnerships - Alliances with key services providers extended Hyper9's reach in Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom, while providing expanded integration and service capabilities for customers. New partners include: IGI, INX, IVOXY Consulting LLC, Softchoice, Righttrac and DNM.
• Industry Accolades - Several industry analyst firms published reports highlighting Hyper9's virtualization innovation, including Gartner's Cool Vendor in IT Operations and Virtualization and Taneja Group's whitepaper, Business-Driven Virtualization: Optimizing Insight and Operational Efficiency in the Dynamic Datacenter. Additionally, the company kicked off 2010 being named One of Ten Virtualization Vendors to Watch in 2010 by CIO.com, and being listed as a featured vendor in Gartner's report Virtualization is Bringing Together Configuration and Performance Management.

Virtualization has quickly evolved into a strategic enabling technology now widely deployed at all levels of the IT stack - from servers and desktops to networks, storage and applications. Hyper9's flagship product, Virtual Environment Optimization Suite, helps organizations virtualize more resources, faster, to meet today's sophisticated business requirements.