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Technology Stocks : Citrix Systems (CTXS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Markowski who wrote (5448)	4/9/1998 8:52:00 PM
From: Tom Gebing	Respond to of 9068

To All... just a small article from Internet Week.... No Denying It: Thin-Client Computing Has Arrivedÿ By Mitch Wagner, InternetWeek When InternetWeek's Case Ventura isn't in Boston, Robert B. Parker's private eye Spenser is the toughest guy in Beantown. In the 1983 novel "The Widening Gyre," Spenser's wits, fists and .38-caliber Smith & Wesson are all that stand between his politician client and blackmailers. Flipping through some newspaper clippings to bone up on his employer's career, Spenser thinks about politics: "As I read, I realized no one took it seriously, in the sense that one takes, say, love, seriously. Everyone took it seriously the way they take baseball seriously. The question was of performance, of errors made, of runs scored, of wins and losses.Even the editorials tended to judge politics in terms of a contest, or victory and defeat." Much of the discussion of thin-client computing is focused on winners and losers. Is the network computer going to win out over the Windows-based terminal? How about the inexpensive PC--will that beat 'em both? The original vision of thin clients was that they would replace PCs, and now it looks like PCs are going to endure, with thin clients instead replacing terminals. Does that mean the thin-client vendors have lost? All the talk about winning and losing veers away from the fact that many users are finding thin-client computers to be useful solutions to IT problems. Whether those systems are NCs, Windows terminals or inexpensive PCs matters far less than the fact that the industry is seeing a shift back to server-centric computing, with low-cost, low-power and--most important--low-maintenance systems sitting on desktops. The users don't care whether thin clients win over PCs, and they don't care which weird little species of thin client proves most popular. They've found solutions that work, and they're sticking with them. Take Value City Furniture, for instance. The 66-store chain is deploying 1,000 IBM NCs to communicate with local AS/400e servers. CIO Jerry Kerr doesn't care about making a bold stand against Wintel tyranny or any of that other malarkey you read about in the computer vendors' marketing literature. He likes the NCs because they're low maintenance, with all the software located on the server. He also likes that they're flexible, able to run the terminal emulation the retailer needs right now along with the Java applications it'll be trying out in the future. Indeed, flexibility is key to most real-world thin-client installations. Users want to try a Chinese restaurant approach: a little Windows terminal for an appetizer, some terminal emulation for a main course and maybe some Java later, when they're hungry again. Users like their thin clients to combine the functionalities of different thin-client flavors. They want a system to run a couple of flavors of terminal emulation. They want something a little like a Windows terminal to run a multiuser Windows client such as Citrix Systems' WinFrame. They want something like an NC with a browser to give users intranet access. Some thin-client users also want to be able to run Java applications, because they're being told Java is the wave of the future. And they want to give users E-mail access through the Windows client, a browser-based E-mail system or a Java E-mail client like Lotus' eSuite. Ironically, Java is what drove this entire thin-client computing movement, but Java doesn't seem to be a priority for NC users. General Electric Transport International Pool is using Windows terminals from Wyse Technology with no Java capabilities. Others, like Value City and AMR Eagle, are buying Java-equipped NCs, but Java applications are something they're just trying out. It's some combination of terminal emulation, browsing and multiuser Windows that they're betting their businesses on. Java is a "nice to have'' rather than a "gotta have.'' Although the original vision of the NC doesn't seem to have taken hold, the current machines called NCs may emerge as the most popular platforms for thin-client computing. Why? Because they do the most--machines from companies like IBM, Network Computing Devices and Sun Microsystems can switch from Java-based NCs to Windows terminals to terminal emulation to X-terminals as users demand it. To be sure, the long-term triumph of thin clients isn't certain. The installed base is still pretty small. And many of the thin clients that are installed are in pilot projects. But users and vendors shouldn't get so absorbed in keeping score in the game between NCs, Windows terminals and inexpensive PCs that they lose sight of the more important issue: The age of thin-client computing isn't coming. It's already here.

To: Tom Markowski who wrote (5448)	4/10/1998 1:27:00 PM
From: Ray Thackeray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9068

>>>Obviously MSFT has thousands of "resellers/Solution partners...that's not the point. <<< On the contrary, that is the point entirely. Citrix sells through resellers, and those same resellers are going to soon have a standard Microsoft solution to sell that will inevitably compete with Citrix. How the pricing works out is going to be interesting, but a VAR who can sell basically the same solution with standard BackOffice components at a lower price than reselling pICAsso, then they will beat their competitor. This scenario will ultimately play out thousands of times, and Microsoft have sheer weight of numbers on their side. Remember, most of Citrix's resellers are already MSPs or BackOffice certified resellers of one form or another. (By the way, I'm not at all concerned with Citrix's stock price right now, my comments in this area are to do - as I have previously mentioned - with Citrix's long-term position, not day-to-day movements, especially right now when they have little competition). I do not hold any Citrix stock. >>>Do you believe that resellers that sell BackOffice with Hydra, are not going to recommend Picasso?<<< Yes. And in greater numbers as time goes by. >>>As far as MSFT field presence, what I'm saying is that for a HUGE company MSFT has very few people talking directly to customers. They leave it up to resellers. I sell servers to Fortune 500 companies in NY/NJ, and not one of my customers knows if they have a MSFT rep. Given that...who is really going to push Hydra as the optimal solution? .... What are we suppose to do with a link to MSFT.com? Play flight simulator?<<< Eh? What's your point? It sounds like you are saying that because Microsoft do not have too many people working directly with end users then they will not be able to compete with Citrix?? Ray