That's a great summary. Thanks so much.
I'm still getting up to speed, so forgive me if I'm dense. I'm trying to get my arms around Citrix's terminology. I do understand their product line a bit, and, as it were it seems essentially to provide distributed access to applications, along with security and a few other elements in a suite. Enterprise applications on-demand, etc. (Tell me if I'm off) But beyond that, there are some nuances. How is a Presentation Server different from a Portal or App server. How are they truly removed from the space of, say, a Vignette/Centricity, or other pure-play "portal or App servers or .Net companies, etc.
One other thing I'm very very interested in is how they play into industry trends and strategies. It seems the s/w biz is really reconfiguring itself to try and figure out new ways to reduce the cost of a seat per customer, but to retain an ongoing revenue stream. This is being done in many different ways. For example -- the whole concept of changing the way licenses are handled. How does a Presententation Server handle software distribution. e.g. Sun is moving (in theory) to this new model with *Orion* (have you watched this?) where s/w is licensed for a fixed annual fee rather than per upgrade. And then, as I understand it, for what you paid you get whatever elements you want from their package of OS+ Devel tools (I'm oversimplifying a bit) How will Citrix's model compare to this? I may be comparing Apples and Oranges (if you'll pardon the pun), but is Citrix part of a cutting edge in changing the biz model as I believe Sun is trying to do?
Also, from a (former) CIO's point of view, everyone is talking about TCO and reducing costs -- how does Citrix really do this? What is appealing about wanting to hear from them as a potential customer? Why not MSFT, or a middleware provider or IBM, or a systems integrator, etc.?
These may appear to be some scattershot random questions but I value your input tremendously. (That's not to say that I would mind hearing from others who might like to chime in, but it's nice to hear from a known source)
Thanks in advance.
As always
-SL |
