UPDATE 2-Riverbed Tech Q4 profit beats Wall Street view

* Q4 adj EPS of $0.21 vs est $0.18

* Q4 revenue $112.9 mln vs est $106.4 mln

* Sees Q1 EPS $0.17-$-0.18 vs est $0.17

* Sees Q1 rev $106 mln-$109 mln vs est $104.8 mln (Recasts; adds conference call details, analyst comment)

BY Saqib Iqbal Ahmed

BANGALORE, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Riverbed Technology Inc (RVBD.O) posted a quarterly profit that beat Wall Street expectations, helped by growth in its enterprise sales, and forecast first-quarter earnings that could beat analysts' estimates.

Riverbed, which helps companies avoid bandwidth congestion, forecast first-quarter adjusted earnings of 17 cents to 18 cents per share, on revenue of $106 million-$109 million.

Analysts on average were expecting first-quarter earnings of 17 cents a share, on revenue of $104.8 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

"While the economy does appear to be showing signs of recovery and IT spending is expected to increase modestly in 2010, like many companies, we still expect our March quarter to experience typical seasonality," Chief Financial Officer Randy Gottfried said on a call with analysts.

"The business seems to have returned to a normal type of seasonal progression," Canaccord Adams analyst Paul Mansky told Reuters by phone.

The company also said it will introduce three new products, one of which will target optimizing the storage and public cloud environments, later this year. This new product could help the company to move beyond the classic definition of WAN optimization, into a more storage specific optimization.

"WAN optimization is their sweet spot, and they are by far the dominant vendor in this market," Mansky said.

It, however, remains to be seem how Riverbed's fortunes evolve as it moves to this storage specific optimazation, a market that is yet to fully emerge, Mansky said.

Riverbed has been beefing up its presence in WAN optimization -- a technology that speeds up applications over networks -- as it takes on rivals like Cisco Systems (CSCO.O) and Blue Coat Systems BCSI.O.

Fourth-quarter net income fell to $0.9 million, or 1 cent a share, from $23.3 million, or 33 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 22 percent to $112.9 million.

Excluding special items, the company earned 21 cents a share, on revenue of $16.1 million.

Analysts on average had expected earnings of 18 cents a share, excluding exceptional items, on revenue of $106.4 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Riverbed is speculated to be an acquisition target.

Shares of the San Francisco-based company, which have more than doubled their value in the last one year, were at $23.40, down 32 cents in after-market trade. They closed at $23.72 Tuesday on Nasdaq. (Reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier, Jarshad Kakkrakandy)