The 2012 article was written shortly after Citrix Synergy Barcelona, when they had more than one event. In fact, I enjoyed having an event in the spring and fall because it gave me an idea of the progress Citrix has made every six months, instead of having to wait a whole year. In this particular event, former Citrix CEO Mark Templeton began the presentation by talking about Citrix CloudGateway and Citrix Online. He mentioned "the post-PC era" and his acquisition of Virtual Computer, as well as ShareFile and Podio.What was missing in the presentation, and what became the idea behind the article, was that there was no mention of XenApp or XenDesktop immediately. Previous events spoke of new features, the number of clients, licenses, use cases ... basically, how Citrix was crushing it. The fact that Citrix spoke more about other areas outside of these classic products deserved to be mentioned as such.
I left with the impression that Citrix was hedging its bets by acquiring Virtual Computer (which joined XenClient), ensuring that it could deliver and manage Windows desktops and applications in virtually any format. It was logical at the time, but when we looked beyond Windows, things seemed a little more disorganized. From the article:
"Therefore, Citrix in five years will continue to focus on Windows desktops, but is more than aware that the future is elsewhere, so we see that Citrix is doing a lot with Citrix Online, Podio and CloudGateway. they told me about Synergy, I should know about CloudGateway and meet XenApp and XenDesktop.
"Now, add Podio to the mix, I always try to find a reason to love." However, the fact that Podio is a platform on which companies can easily create applications means that Citrix gives companies the ability to abandon old Windows applications for a Web approach Citrix can not only provide native applications to users , can also help you to develop new accessible from anywhere without having to remotely supplement users' operating systems, I may not like it today, but I can see it coming in the future. "
I closed the article by saying that:
"The future of Citrix will be total in these technologies, and although I do not think they will ever give up the Windows technologies they have (at least not in this time), I see that Citrix brings them back further. From the main stage to Over time, I think we'll see the same thing in VMware, but it's not so surprising since his interest in the Windows desktop goes back to 2008. It should be fun to watch.
Seeing things today, I'm sure the only thing that was right was that the Windows-based technologies that Citrix owned would still be a big part of the business, but they would focus publicly on the following. It's not very exaggerated, so I really do not want credit for that.
The most interesting thing about this article is that we are here five years later, and the only thing that has changed in the Citrix situation are the names. Citrix is always looking for the following, but this time it's with a different set of products and different leadership. They continue to talk about things other than XenApp and XenDesktop, although this is the main reason someone deals with Citrix.
Start at the top. Since 2012, CEO Mark Templeton has retired, returned and was then deported. Citrix replaced him with Kirill Tatarinov, who was later replaced by COO David Henshall. They are three CEOs in five years, with an additional CEO search there between Mark's first retirement and return.
Now, let's look at the products that Citrix is focusing on at that time. It is safe to say that none of them appear as clearly as before, if they are close.
Podio
Citrix had just acquired Podio in early 2012, so they were excited to promote it as the big news from Citrix, allowing you to build browser-based applications and workflows. Here we are in 2017, however, and the only time I use Podio is when someone from Citrix forces me to use it, probably because they have been forced to use it themselves. I'm not quite sure how he escaped the cuts that Citrix suffered in 2016 when he isolated core products, or why Citrix considers it important to be in space " Flexible project management ". The podium could still be there, but it's not the platform of the future that it once was.
Cloud Gateway
When Cloud Gateway was first announced, it was an identity management tool that we thought would be integrated with local applications and SaaS, which allowed for the provisioning and deprogramming of multiple user accounts. suppliers. It was the "gateway to the cloud," and it certainly looked like a lifeline. Then, Citrix turned it into a mobile application management tool, at least until they buy Zenprise a few months later. Now, what's left has been incorporated into XenMobile.
It's ironic, given that identity and access management is a big deal today. Citrix could have been at the forefront of everything, but it came out too early.
Citrix Online
We all know what happened to Citrix Online. One of Citrix's most valuable assets, unrelated to other core products, was sold as part of the restructuring following Elliott's participation in Citrix in 2015.
Virtual computer (XenClient)
Although Citrix already has XenClient, they acquired Virtual Computer in 2012 to add some management features. Both platforms were somewhat similar (both used the same hypervisor and had compatible virtual machines), but both lacked some management functions. The combination of everything has given Citrix the best chance of gaining ground with the customer's hypervisor.
Citrix ended up killing XenClient (a Type 1 client hypervisor since it was running directly on hardware instead of a host operating system) in October 2015, and opted for client virtualization on its client hypervisor. Type-2, DesktopPlayer. DesktopPlayer still exists, but it's not the same as XenClient and it gets very little attention from anyone other than existing customers.
It's kind of a lugubrious list, is not it? Should we add all the other things that have come and gone in Citrix in the same period? Octoblu, for example, would allow a whole new world for Citrix until it closed last month. Do you remember WorkspacePod? What about Sanbolic?
Each of these things was praised as the next step for Citrix, and each of them was left on the road for one reason or another. I was wrong with each of them, but there is one more thing I could not have been wrong with: VMware.
I predicted that VMware would do the same thing as Citrix, focusing on newer platforms instead of investing more in Windows. By context, at that time, VMware focused only on VDI and showed no interest in applications. Windows was always something they thought was on death row, so it really seemed like they were going all-in in something other than Horizon.
In fact, VMware has stepped on the accelerator, adding support for applications and even penetrating Windows administration. The fact that VMware caught Citrix is amazing in itself, but when you add the full investment of its approach to Windows, it could not be more wrong. In fact, VMware now occupies the driver's seat in many ways, and more and more we are asking Citrix what it will do with things like Unified Endpoint Management.
In fact, Citrix and VMware are more or less from the point of view of desktop virtualization, but all indications are that AirWatch has leadership (or at least most minds) in the EMM space. Will Citrix respond or continue to focus on what will follow?
What is "next" anyway?
I am not able to make a prediction at the moment. In fact, if you asked me to project what Citrix would be in five years, I do not know if I could do it. In November 2015, Brian told Citrix "no chance of being a company by the end of 2017" and, say, the year is not over yet.
With that in mind, I think I'll sit down and see what happens. Citrix is a state of change right now, focusing on things like focusing on ShareFile and at the same time becoming a security and analytics company in the cloud (although this message was delivered by the former CEO Kirill Tatarinov, who knows how he will do it). leave under a new direction). They have desktop virtualization solutions built for Azure, which is great, although it does not really help the bottom line.
The main conclusion is that we are in 2017, and Citrix is still in the same situation as in 2012: trying to find the next innovation based on its existing customer base of XenApp and XenDesktop. No matter what Citrix has done to prepare for the next phase, they are still a desktop virtualization company. It's not that they have not been successful in other areas, but they have not been able to use technology that could propel them into the future. The result is that the income of the company is fixed, the shareholders are not happy and they are in the situation where they are.
