If the influx of mobile devices has proven anything, it’s that application delivery and Web content optimization go hand-in-hand. Tablets and smartphones are on the rise, and users need mobility. Traditional application delivery vendors are bracing for the future by aligning their products with the changing needs of the enterprise — faster, and more flexible Web experiences.

Riverbed has announced updates to its Stingray application delivery controller (ADC) product line adding its newly-acquired Aptimizer Web content optimization product to the ADC — Stingray version 9.0.

The announcement comes in at the heels of F5′s latest updates to its BIG-IP Application Delivery Controller (ADC) product line — which was enhanced to support Google’s SPDY protocol and designed with remote and mobile users in mind.

High latency for Web-based applications and slow-to-load websites are the enemy to any business, and the release of Stingray 9.0 sought to extend IT performance in the user direction, noted Naveen Prabhu, senior product manager for Riverbed.

“After just seven seconds, users will leave the Web site if it hasn’t loaded, and these users leaving are affecting your bottom line,” he said.

Cutting down the number of round trips to the server in order for Web pages to load is key for Web content optimization — and in gaining more page views. Stingray 9.0 enhanced with Aptimizer can optimize Web content up to four times faster, while eating up 40-60% less bandwidth,  Prabhu claimed, noting that one unnamed corporate website gained 10 more page views per day after deploying Stingray 9.0.

Depending on the enterprises’ environment, the latest version of Stingray — a software-based ADC — can be deployed standard server hardware on Cloud Steelhead to optimize any Web or cloud-based applications for the customer or cloud provider.

ADC vendors are starting to notice that while the legacy ADC model is important for bandwidth optimization, the user’s web experience must come first.

“Users don’t want to be sitting in Starbucks waiting for Web pages to load,” Prabhu said.

It looks like political candidates are dealing with the same issues. If you’re in the mood to donate money to your favorite presidential candidate, don’t bother using your smartphone.

Web content optimization vendor Strangeloop looked at the campaign websites for President Barack Obama and each of the candidates vying for the Republican nomination. Of all the sites, only Mitt Romney’s had a site optimized for mobile users, according to Strangeloop CEO Joshua Bixby, who blogged about his review.

Bixby visited all of the sites with an iPhone and an Android device via 3G. He said all the sites were able to load on his iPhone within 10 to 20 seconds, but the load times on his Android device were terrible. Romney’s was the fastest at 21 seconds, but it failed to size properly. Other sites took several minutes to load, Bixby said.

Finally he noted that campaign websites are failing in their most essential mission: to drive revenue. Given that most campaigns haven’t optimized their sites for mobile users, the donate buttons on each site is either lost to mobile visitors or ineffective.