A good look at Citrix over the years to now by David F. Carr of Forbes Magazine. Brings back memories of Citrix & the wars with Microsoft (and IBM) back then. We were in the middle of it...
Sourcce Link on Forbes.com - read complete article
For about 15 years Citrix Systems has been an important software company for corporate technology managers trying to simplify the deployment of applications and reduce desktop computer support headaches. Although the appeal of Citrix technology is much the same as it was to its early adopters, the technology itself has changed a lot to adapt to the current era of virtualization.
I spoke with Citrix Systems Chief Technology Officer Simon Crosby this week to get caught up.
I still remember Citrix as the company that in 1997 survived a near death experience, tangling with Microsoft over whether it would continue to enjoy the right to market a multiuser version of Windows NT. That software made it possible to centrally administer desktop software by running it on a server, while passing video, keystrokes and mouse clicks over the network. Citrix had been selling its MetaFrame thin client software for Windows for several years, when Microsoft recognized the potential of the market and threatened to withhold the renewal of a licensing deal.
Citrix looked like it could be just another small software company flattened by Microsoft on its path to world domination. Instead, a delegation of Citrix executives traveled to Redmond, Wash., and managed to negotiate a cross-licensing deal that allowed Microsoft to offer its own Windows Terminal Server, while Citrix packaged its software as an add-on enhancement to that basic remote desktop capability.
In this thin client mode, PC capabilities became less important, and sometimes the PC was replaced by a simplified video terminal.
Citrix became well known and widely adopted by CIOs wanting to simplify their desktop computing environments or provide remote access to corporate applications for home users. MetaFrame was renamed Presentation Server and, more recently, XenApp. Along the way, Citrix purchased XenSource, the company that had nurtured the development of the open source Xen virtualization technology. I began to see Citrix compared more often to VMware, the biggest name in virtualization technology for the enterprise.
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