Mike,
Regarding Citrix primary market.... While the current market is the corporate internet, I do believe Citrix views the general Internet/ASP market as the place for future growth. There is no reason why it couldn't be used in such an environment. The reason for my belief is that Citrix is taking a very active role in ASP-related conferences and seems to be making a real investment in that market. They have taken some positive steps in making their pricing structure ASP friendly and it looks like they are trying to also develop products to support interactive ASP apps.
The IBM annoucement is nice... but it doesn't necessary help reassure the customer that the Internet is secure and accessible. The recent DOS attacks show how easily a web-site could be taken down by an relative novice. As a business owner, would you put a critical business function on the Internet and place your business at risk if the site went down? This question needs to be handled since it is at the source of people's uneasiness. I think over time, confidence will growth. However, I don't believe the decision can be hurried.
***** Note, the statements below are VERY SPECULATIVE *****
Actually, the annoucement that I viewed with most interest wasn't the IBM annoucement. Instead, the Psion annoucement really perked my interest. As I stated earlier, Citrix's solution could be viewed as a proprietary, universal browser solution. The Psion annoucement was interesting since they are heavily into the telecom space. With them partnering with Citrix, it could open up the possiblity of Citrix becoming embedded inside a cell phone via Psion's Symbian relationship. The current thought seems to be that cell phone will merge with PDA (like the Palm or Windows CE). Users will be required to install new apps to use different software. With the Citrix partnership, it become possible for Psion to deliver an architecture where applications can be automatically managed on a server and run on a phone. This picture become even more compelling if you consider the 3G wireless and the HDR technology that Qualcomm is developing. These advances have the possibility of converting a wireless phone from a low-bandwith / low fidelity device to a contect-rich media appliation. The really cool thing is that with Citrix, new apps need only to be deployed at a central server and automatically deployed to phone via ICA. Of course, these ideas will require atleast 3-4 years to become reality. However, the possibilities are mind blowing!
Heeren |
