Eyeing Boston
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 3/20/2000
Look for a high-powered newcomer to the Massachusetts software neighborhood. Citrix Systems Inc., a leader in the application service provider market, is casting covetous glances at the region. Ed Iacobucci, chief technology officer of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Citrix, says his firm is likely to establish a major presence here in the near future.
'We're seriously looking at Boston as a possible significant expansion of the Citrix firm,' Iacobucci said last week. 'We're going to have some partnerships and probably some acquisitions in the area.'
One reason: Proximity to EMC Corp.'s Data General business unit, and the remains of Digital Equipment Corp., now owned by Compaq Computer Corp. Iacobucci said that Citrix works closely with both these organizations.
Citrix makes software that lets companies run programs on a central server computer, instead of on each individual PC. For instance, instead of giving each worker a copy of Microsoft Corp.'s Excel spreadsheet program, workers get a small Citrix client program. This client connects to a Citrix server that runs the Microsoft program remotely. A single server can provide Excel to dozens of workers.
Major companies such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Oracle Corp. have begun offering ASP services, and International Data Corp. predicts there'll be a $2 billion ASP market by 2003. Iacobucci thinks Citrix is well-placed to take part in the boom.
The company now employs 1,200 workers, about half in Fort Lauderdale. Iacobucci said his company will probably take on about 600 workers in the Boston area, many of them through acquisitions of local firms. Which local firms? Wait and see, Iacobucci said. |
