Citrix launched new application delivery products at its
annual iForum user conference in Edinburgh today, as it sought to
help meet the on-demand requirements of enterprise users.
Attendees at the event were given demonstrations of Citrix
Receiver, Dazzle, XenClient, NetScaler VPX and other products. The
first three products are free, while NetScaler VPX is a cheaper way
for firms to make their smaller web applications widely
available.
At the moment, the NetScaler MPX appliance is used by firms to
optimise the delivery of major web applications, but its cost is
seen as prohibitive when supporting less important applications
that don't need the same power behind them.
NetScaler VPX is downloadable software that can be powered on a
standard X86 server. The product will be available from September
and its price will be revealed then.
Citrix CEO Mark Templeton told iForum delegates that all the
products would aid those companies aiming to address on-demand and
self-service application distribution needs.
Templeton said, "We want to make things simple for firms when
distributing apps, Netscaler is the controller, the delivery
network is the internet, and the receiver is the browser. The more
you complicate matters the less efficiency you get."
Citrix Receiver is a software client that is downloaded onto a
user's machine, which creates a single point of application access.
It is designed to keep applications up to date and optimise their
performance. It is available now.
Dazzle is slightly more interesting, as on first sight, it seems
to contradict what Citrix has spent the last 20 years creating - a
suite of software products that virtualise applications.
Dazzle allows enterprise end users to download applications onto
their desktops and laptops, which is not the server-based computing
and thin-client market Citrix has been serving.
Templeton said Dazzle would allow IT departments to advertise
the applications available to users, provide an application search
and online help facility to end-users, and help firms migrate to
Windows 7 through its self-service distribution capabilities.
"If you know how to use iTunes, you'll know how to use Dazzle,"
said Templeton. It is available as a tech preview product from
today.
When asked whether Dazzle went against what Citrix stood for,
Wes Wasson, Citrix chief marketing officer, said, "Dazzle gives IT
departments more control over what apps are used."
He explained they could use Active Directory, for instance, to
dictate what rights users had to specific applications. It could
also use software licence control technology from Citrix to enable
software use to be charged to specific departments, and for apps to
only be available for fixed time limits, he said.
Wasson also stressed that virtualised applications as well as
downloaded ones could be distributed via Dazzle. If required, firms
could also use Dazzle to distribute free and approved web software
and widgets.
Sean Whetstone, head of IT services at recruitment firm Reed,
said, "A self-service app system would be useful to have, providing
it doesn't take too much time for my team to manage. It could also
be used for external apps too."
Whetstone said firms such as Microsoft could be allowed to sell
their software licences through Dazzle, direct to those with
responsibility for buying them.
XenClient will be available later this year and is designed for
mobile workers. It is free and Citrix developed it in partnership
with Intel.
The product allows a single machine to be safely used by staff
for both their personal and company work. A demonstration showed
how a machine infected with a key logger could collect personal
data when it was typed in by a user. But when that user went into
an online corporate app, the key logger was not able to collect
that data as it was typed - the window it was being typed in was
effectively ring-fenced.
Inspector Sanjiv Pattani, an officer with Leicestershire
Constabulary, said such a product "may have legs" for his force,
providing existing information security needs were addressed.
Pattani has recently rolled out a mobile data systems for 600
officers on the beat and around 275 vehicles. The officers carry
Blackberries running Citrix virtualised desktops protected by
Citrix VPN security.
Citrix announced that the annual Edinburgh, Antwerp and Munich
iForums were being axed and rolled into a single annual "Synergy"
event. The first one will be held in Berlin in October 2010.
Templeton said the company's growth in size and products through
acquisition and development meant it needed a bigger and
all-encompassing show.
The company will also be hoping that by October next year - four
months after the usual Edinburgh show, the effects of the global
recession may have waned.
Citrix axed 10% of its staff - some 5,000 people across the
board - at the beginning of the year, to help cope with the market
downturn.