Citrix Systems has unveiled two new developments in its
continued drive to make it easier for companies to deliver
applications to users.
The Project Tarpon and EdgeSight products are Citrix's latest
attempt to prove that it is more than simply a thin client or
client/server software solutions company.
At its iForum user conference in Edinburgh today, the company
announced that a limited beta of its Project Tarpon product will
now be available to users to try out.
Tarpon makes it easier for companies to provide "software as a
service" to users' desktops.
Project Tarpon aims to reduce the time it takes to deliver
applications and reduce the number of software licenses needed by
companies to support their staff.
The software allows companies to profile what applications are
needed across an organisation, and then publicise them on the
company network to allow users to manually select them.
The required applications can then be streamed to groups of users'
desktops on request, instead of the IT department simply sending
large amounts of applications to all users in an organisation,
where they may sit on machines unused.
Citrix chief executive Mark Templeton told iForum delegates that
the consumer web was now driving enterprise IT and that companies
now had "to change their mindset" when it came to delivering the
technology needed in an organisation.
He said enterprise IT departments had to give employees choice over
which applications they used, and follow the example of Google,
Yahoo and MSN in making them simple to use.
Project Tarpon comes hard on the heels of Citrix Netscaler. Citrix
bought Netscaler last year to give companies a more secure and
faster way to deliver applications to multiple devices.
In another development, Citrix has announced the availability of
Citrix EdgeSight, an "application visibility" tool that allows IT
departments to view the user experience when it comes to the
performance of applications.
EdgeSight has been made available following the acquisition of the
technology through Citrix's recent purchase of Reflectent.
Morgan Stanley is already a user of the EdgeSight product, which it
uses for application usage metrics, data compliance, security
auditing, and capacity planning.
Lou Shipley, vice president and general manager of the Citrix
management systems group, said, "Often users can ring up the IT
department and claim that their system isn't working properly or
the network is under-performing, but EdgeSight can see what is
really going on."
Shipley said EdgeSight can pinpoint unauthorised applications that
don't work properly with other applications on systems, faults in
authorised applications, or heavy data traffic being transported
over the network from unauthorised websites, such as sports footage
or film clips.
