Citrix puts a new spin on MetaFrame

Citrix has kept its promise to make the MetaFrame Access Suite 3.0 commercially available within a year. RAHUL NEEL MANI asks if this new product suite can change its fortunes for good

SOUMA DAS reveals that Citrix is in talks with major consulting houses such as PWC and KPMG

CITRIX Systems, the access infrastructure solutions provider, recently launched MetaFrame Access Suite 3.0, replacing the earlier version MetaFrame 1.8, which, according to the company, was no longer capable of meeting the needs of an extended enterprise. MetaFrame is one of the world’s most widely deployed software solutions; it is used to provide a single, secure and well-managed point of access to enterprise applications. The latest version delivers usability improvements with SmoothRoaming, a new feature that ensures consistent mobile access that’s always on, and allows computing environments to follow users across locations, devices and bypasses access outages. Another feature of this suite is a common management interface that lets IT administrators observe and measure access infrastructure performance ac-ross the enterprise.

Citrix has also been working to create a new market for its flagship MetaFrame Presentation Server, a programme that lets users access server-based applications on an array of computing devices. It is an integral part of a suite of four separate products known as the MetaFrame Access Suite 3.0. The suite lets IT teams create a set of client/server programmes that let users connect to their applications from any device over any network. The question remains, can it help Citrix make a dent in the enterprise market?

Integrated infrastructure

MetaFrame Access Suite 3.0 delivers on the promise Citrix made over a year ago to provide customers with a complete and integrated access infrastructure solution that transforms organisations into productive, mobile and flexible on-demand enterprises. “Keeping that promise in mind, we are now shipping the latest release of both our core Presentation Server and the Access Suite, which includes applications for collaborating on documents and applications, a secure Web portal, and single sign-on capability,” says Kishore Badami, director, Marketing, Citrix. One thing is sure: Citrix can no longer be accused of being a one-trick pony. Also, judging by the company’s hectic activities, it is going to put in considerable effort to make people realise that Access Suite 3.0 is not just another release to improve a traditional Citrix environment, but an entirely new platform for accessing applications.

Back in the old days, enterprises began to use Citrix’s technology to consolidate their desktop applications onto servers thereby reducing support costs and improving performance over the WAN when accessing UNIX and mainframe-based applications. The company calls the MetaFrame Access Suite a revolutionary product, and says that it will change the way enterprises work. According to Nabeel Youakim, area vice president, Microsoft Global Relationship, Citrix, “The end result for the customer is better access to applications and information. Customers today spend the better part of their IT budgets (nearly 80 percent) on maintaining systems. With Citrix Access infrastructure and strategy, the situation can be turned around. The cost of maintaining systems can be 60 percent less than what it is today.”

MetaFrame Access Suite 3.0 lets corporations provide secure and single-point access to enterprise applications. Unlike point products that require costly implementation and management, the MetaFrame Access Suite is an integrated infrastructure that provides a complete portfolio of the access options an organisation needs to execute its business vision. Says Youakim, “Customers will always need to get access to new applications and there will always be a complex backend. Citrix’s access strategy will be to deliver a technology that is independent of the platforms or devices used by a company.”

Citrix wants to evolve. Till the time it launched the MetaFrame Access Suite, it was known as a company that supplied infrastructure that let users access applications. Now Citrix will have to convince and teach its system integration partners and resellers to incorporate the concept of access strategy into their sales pitch. Earlier these folks used to sell Citrix with the assurance that the software lowered IT costs. Although it is quite logical to have an access strategy and infrastructure in place, there is a lot more involved in penetrating the user community, and Citrix knows this well. Comments Souma Das, the company’s managing director for India, “Access infrastructure has a key role to play if Citrix is to increase its user base in India. Access is all about making employees more productive. To do this, you need to give them access to critical information and apps.” Adds Badami, “In India this is crucial because bandwidth isn’t cheap and it’s costly to provide access to applications across locations.”

Baiting the hook

Though there is no formidable challenge to Citrix from any competitor in the access business, it’s not going to be easy to sell the concept of access. Citrix may be trying to focus beyond delivering server-based applications to the desktop, but there’s a long way to go. Users who buy Citrix software typically do so for moving from the traditional fat desktop computing model to a thin client Windows Server-based computing paradigm. So far, Citrix has done extremely well with Indian SMEs. Now it has to convince the CIOs of large enterprises that it means business.

The legacy drag

Worldwide, Citrix has over 125,000 users with a proven presence and strength among Fortune 500 companies, but in India the company has only 650 users to date. Das says the reason for the situation in India is legacy—organisations such as the government, public sector banks and large enterprises have plenty of legacy equipment that they won’t dispose off to embrace a new framework, at least not immediately. “Co-existence is always a big challenge, and in India it’s gigantic, so that’s where the Access Suite from Citrix will play a decisive role,” opines Das. That said, the Citrix Presentation Server will be strongest product in terms of growth over the next couple of years in India.

Says Das, “We have both a short-term and long-term strategy for India. During the last three-four years, Citrix has been able to make a dent only in the SME segment, barring a few exceptions in the large enterprise sector. But the focus of the company in the future will clearly be on large enterprises, especially in banking and finance, telecom, healthcare and manufacturing. Citrix is working with system integration partners such as Wipro and TCS to address large enterprises. It will also focus on large companies, including the Global Fortune 500 MNCs that operate in the country, so that it can build volumes. In its efforts to make MetaFrame all-pervasive, Citrix has to refocus and equip its channel partners for access management strategy so that they, as the front-end of the company, can convince users. “There is a lot of customer and channel education involved to make it successful,” observes Badami.

Walking with giants

Citrix is working on strategic partnerships with its global partners who have a sizeable presence in India. “It is the right time for Citrix to work with companies such as Microsoft, IBM and HP,” Das believes. Reliable sources in the company say that some partnerships will be soon be announced.

Microsoft has a huge enterprise strategy in India, and Citrix believes that this is why it is keen on partnering Citrix in the domestic market. (Microsoft has recently named Citrix as its Global ISV Partner of the Year.) “Migration from Windows NT4 to Windows 2003 and from MetaFrame 1.8 to 3.0 is the main focus for the two companies respectively, that’s where we have a common interest and where we can help each other,” notes Das. Badami says, “Microsoft recently requested Citrix to help it in three different accounts in the financial sector where it hit roadblocks and wanted us to solve the problems. This kind of cross-selling will definitely be mutually beneficial.”

On the other hand, Citrix is planning to work with HP and IBM extensively in India. It will work with these two on various fronts such as joint marketing initiatives and go-to-market strategies. Citrix is trying its best to align its access infrastructure with the on-demand world. Thus, working with HP (‘adaptive enterprise’) and IBM (‘on-demand computing’) could prove to be very lucrative. “HP and IBM are reselling Citrix software globally, so why can’t it be done in India?” asks Youakim.

Das reveals that Citrix is in talks with consulting houses such as PwC and KPMG. “But our main strategy is to focus on the large system integrators for improving our market share.”

rahul@expresscomputeronline.com