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Citrix: Looking To Virtualizations Next Stage
By Bob Violino
Since its founding in 1989, Citrix Systems has been providing virtualization technology that securely delivers business applications to end users. And, with the company's October 2007 acquisition of XenSource, a provider of open source virtualization software, Citrix expanded into the markets for server and desktop virtualization. That, says the company, gives it a comprehensive lineup of virtualization infrastructure offerings.
Today, Citrix application virtualization products are in use on more than 800,000 servers worldwide, serving more than 70 million end users, according to Wes Wasson, senior vice president and chief marketing officer. The Fort Lauderdale, Fla., company posted revenue of $1.39 billion in 2007, up 23% from revenue in 2006. Net income for 2007 was $214 million, compared with $183 million the year before.
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But Citrix is looking beyond today's definition of virtualization.
Wasson says the company's philosophy is that virtualization is constantly evolving. "Virtualization is a technology, not a destination," he says. "Five years from now, people won't be talking about virtualization in the same way they are today. Virtualization will so permeate every aspect of computing, it will simply be assumed, and the conversation will shift to 'now that everything is virtualized, how can I apply that to solving more strategic business problems.'"
Officials at Citrix think this transition is already starting to occur, Wasson says, as organizations move beyond basic server consolidation and begin realizing that virtualization can make the entire IT infrastructure more flexible and responsive. Citrix "sees virtualization as an enabling technology that is part of a far bigger and more strategic market for application delivery infrastructure," Wasson says. "In a world where businesses run on applications, ensuring those applications can be delivered to end users with the best performance, security and efficiency in today's highly dynamic business environment is rapidly becoming a core focus for IT organizations around the world."
Realizing this broader vision will be a struggle for vendors that focus mainly on virtualizing servers in the data center, Wasson says. "The real power of virtualization is its ability to transform the components of computing into dynamic building blocks that can be dynamically coupled and reassembled on the fly," he says. "This is an end-to-end value proposition that must include servers, applications and desktops."
The Citrix product line includes XenServer, XenApp and XenDesktop.
XenServer software enables organizations to deploy virtual machines on physical servers, and manage them and their related storage and networking resources from a single management console. A software layer called the Xen hypervisor runs on server hardware and allows each physical server to run one or more virtual servers.
XenApp is a Windows application delivery system that offers both client and server application virtualization, according to Citrix. It allows organizations to deliver applications as a service.
XenDesktop is a desktop virtualization product that enables organizations to centralize Windows applications in the data center and deliver those applications to end users via a network.
All three of the products are part of the Citrix Delivery Center product family.
Wasson says more than 200,000 organizations worldwide are using virtualization products from Citrix to deliver applications to users. He says customers include the Fortune 100 companies and most of the Fortune Global 500, as well as hundreds of thousands of small businesses and consumers.
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