New era belongs to Cloud, says Citrix

BARCELONA, SPAIN: Virtualization company Citrix sees an end of the PC era! The company is now harping on a new era that it believes would belong to the cloud. To welcome this new era, Citrix is bracing itself with a unprecedented product updates and solutions.

The big move by Citrix comes at a time when the company revenues are just a half of its rival VM Ware's. The Citrix's third quarter results announced on October 28 show that the firm still stands second to VM Ware despite an impressive year-on-year growth.

The Citrix Synergy 2011, held here (Oct 26-28), got off to a start with the company promoting its new concept of the 'Personal cloud". Citrix hopes the 'Personal cloud' will replace traditional desktops and cater to IT departments supporting multiple devices, delivering on-demand applications and desktops, as well as protecting corporate data.

The newly coined 'Personal cloud' is the new desktop for enterprise users, bringing together the applications, data and collaboration capabilities they use daily in both their work and personal lives. It empowers users to work and collaborate the way they wish from any location, anytime, on any device.

Also Read: Cheaper virtual desktops from Citrix soon

Apart from the three-cloud vision that Citrix follows - Personal Cloud, Private Cloud and Public Cloud - the company also sought to  demonstrate its firm footing in the Post-PC era. 

Citrix CEO Mark Tempelton says consumerization cannot be fought. "Organizations need to embrace it," he said during his key note address, hinting that Citrix was there to help the orgainzations.

Mark Templeton, who also announced acquisition of AppDNA, a UK-based company known for its AppTitude product, said the acquisition would help businesses and beat the big countdown clock to 2014 (when Microsoft stops offering support for Windows XP). The acquisition is seen as a move to strengthen the application management side of its virtual desktop offering.

Even as the Citrix Synergy 2011 promised to take virtualization to the next level, there were announcements about a slew of products. Among them was expansion of its Personal Cloud and 'Follow Me Data' concepts. The company has integrated the recently-acquired ShareFile products into its existing range.

According to Citrix, ShareFile users would now be able to enjoy ShareFile as a standalone service in a browser, on a desktop as a separate app and within Microsoft Outlook. ShareFile capabilities will also be available as a 'Workspaces' feature within the GoToMeeting collaboration product.

The virtualization giant also announced a new HDX Ready System-on-Chip (SoC) project. Under this project Citrix will be working with top PC makers including HP and Dell for thin-client implementation that will bring high-definition virtualisation capabilities on-a-chip.

Citrix also announced the launch of CloudConnectors which would facilitating the implementation of hybrid cloud. According to  Citrix, the CloudConnector for CDN (cloud delivery network) will be released in November 2011 itself and according to a company presentation CDN uses an optional addition NetScaler appliances running in-house with a service from Cotendo to accelerate hybrid cloud infrastructure. The NetScaler option starts at $5,000, whilst the Cotendo offering starts at $500/month.

Commenting on the new announcements made by Citrix Tim Dillon, AVP Asia Pacific End User & Mobility Research ,

IDC Australia said that the new announcements moves Citrix from just being 'just a desktop virtualisation' company to cloud and business enababelement company. From my perspective, "I saw Synergy as about freeing companies to pursue working anywhere at anytime via any device. It's designed to help companies deal with the growing trends around consumerisation of IT, mobility and cloud delivery of services, data and applications."

"To be fair, the company was very open about sharing its roadmap and the fact that Korea Telecom was there to discuss Cloud was an interesting validation of the cloud strategy, " Dillon added.

(The author was hosted by Citrix in Barcelona, Spain)