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.