SAN FRANCISCO — Citrix Systems (NASDAQ: CTXS) outlined its channel strategy for 2011 and made several additions to its cloud computing offerings as it closed its Summit partner event and began its Synergy 2011 user conference. The company’s channel plans haven’t changed drastically from 2010, but it will be moving further into cloud offerings with more support for personal devices this year.
As part of a series of announcements to kick off Synergy, Citrix released a GoToManage app for the iPad that allows channel partners or IT professionals to access end users’ desktops through their iPad to make administrative changes or solve problems remotely.
“IT is going to have to start spending a lot more time on the delivery,” Citrix CEO Mark Templeton said in his keynote for channel partners. “We need to be able to say yes to everything, yes to all of these devices.”
The GoToManage app will be available free to download in the coming months, but a subscription upgrade will also be available. “We’re pretty sure that it’s pretty infectious,” Templeton said. “They’ll eventually want the more sophisticated subscription version.”
The updated XenClient 2, also announced at Synergy, will support three times the number of laptops than its previous versions, or 45 million PCs and laptops, along with smartphones and tablets. Tablets are a good way for partners to open the door to virtualization with customers said David Wright, Citrix area vice-president for Canada. Citrix also announced XenClient XT, a new product available this June, aimed at organizations with high security and remote access needs, such as government defence departments and the healthcare sector.
Citrix partners should still be pushing XenDesktop this year, even harder than last, according to the company. Citrix has updated XenDesktop to include IntelliCache technology, which the company claims can cut storage costs in half. Roughly half of the company’s partners are already selling it, but a large small medium business (SMB) market remains untapped, Templeton said.
Now, Citrix plans to help partners tap that market through its acquisition of Kaviza and its VDI-in-a-box product and through some additions to its own solutions. “It opens up a whole new revenue stream for them,” said Craig Stilwell, Citrix’s vice-president of channels and field operations for the Americas. “They can become an even more trusted advisor than they already are.”
The company will also do this through new offerings that adapt to the consumerization of IT, including more emphasis on the “personal cloud,” or the melding together of end users’ personal and business apps, among both enterprise and SMB customers.
“We think that we’re in the three PC era,” Templeton said-private cloud, public cloud and the personal cloud, where consumerization of IT is driving Citrix to offer better solutions for end-users who want to integrate their business and personal computing lives. “The inmates are running the show.”
Citrix is also encouraging its partners to build a networking practice this year. “We build our networking and desktop virtualization together,” Stilwell said, so partners should do the same. “A lot of our partners that have been with us for a long time didn’t grow up around a networking practice. I think we’ve made it relatively simple.”
Citrix’s Synergy announcements also included NetScaler Cloud Gateway and NetScaler Cloud Bridge, two new products built to simplify delivery of apps and software-as-a-service by connecting enterprise data centres to external clouds.
Citrix also announced Project Olympus, a new infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) that will be available as both a public cloud and as a platform for private clouds. The project is based upon OpenStack and a cloud-optimized version of XenServer. The offering will begin shipping later this year, but the company has an early access program available through its Web site now.
Similar to last year’s goals, Citrix partners should also be engaging with their Microsoft counterparts, Stilwell said. “Even if you’re not engaged with Microsoft, Microsoft’s in your accounts. Remind them of how Citrix and Microsoft work together.”
“You should absolutely be capitalizing on our Microsoft relationship,” Wright added during Summit, especially around sales engagement and participation in Citrix and Microsoft’s V-Alliance program.
John Kadianos, CEO of Hyper Technologies Inc., a Toronto-based Citrix partner, echoed that thought. “Walking in together is a completely different story. It makes it easier to win.”
Follow Harmeet Singh on Twitter: @HSingh88.
