Citrix moves up against IBM, SAP in portal market

Siobhan Kennedy

NEW YORK: Citrix Systems Inc., targeting rivals such as IBM and SAP, this

week introduced a new software system for giving users Web-style access to all

their business information, such as e-mails, saying its software is easier and

cheaper.

The market for so-called portal software is booming because it addresses one

of the fundamental problems businesses face today -- sifting through the vast

quantities of data they have accumulated over the years and giving employees

access to the information needed to do their jobs.

The idea is that a finance worker, for example, would turn on his or her

computer in the morning and be greeted by a Web page that gives access to the

information -- company expenses, employee salaries or new budget requests --

that he or she has requested.

According to industry research firm IDC, the market for enterprise portals is

set to grow to $2.6 billion in 2006 from $461 million in 2001, which translates

to a five-year compound annual growth rate of 41.2 percent.

Despite that growth potential, the adoption of portals has been relatively

slow so far, Citrix chief executive Mark Templeton told Reuters in an interview

earlier this week.

The reason, Templeton said, is because the companies touting portals, such as

International Business Machines Corp., SAP AG, Oracle Corp. and Siebel Systems

Inc., are trying to do too much too soon.

Rather than just give employees access to the information they need via a

single Web page, they're trying to sell customers on the idea that all the

information should be connected and integrated behind the scenes, which is a

much more complicated and expensive task.

"About 80 percent of the value of a portal comes just from giving

personalized access to the right information at the right time from

anywhere," Templeton said. "The other 20 percent comes from the

ability to do business process integration ... which mainly requires putting all

the plumbing in between applications on the network."

Consequently, for every dollar a customer spends on IBM's portal software, it

will end up spending an extra $3 to $5 to get it up and running, compared to 25

to 50 cents for Citrix new NFuse Elite product, Templeton said.

Move makes sense



Analysts said the move into portals makes sense for Citrix, which is trying
to diversify its business away from its core base of making software that

emulates Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.

While Microsoft-related business makes up the lion's share of the company's

revenue -- $530 million of the roughly $600 million in 2001 -- the slowdown in

corporate spending has led Citrix to miss Wall Street earnings expectations for

the past two quarters in a row.

Citrix software allows any personal computer, whether it is running the

Windows operating system or not, to run programs via Citrix software. The

software is commonly used on office networks to connect remote computers to

central computers.

"They're hitting the market at the right time," John Rizzuto, an

analyst with Credit Suisse First Boston told Reuters, adding that portal

software was a natural progression to Citrix's business. "Access and

aggregation is their business and this (portals) is the next level of access and

aggregation," Rizzuto said.

(C) Reuters Limited.